Hiya
ok tracked the reason down
I had a cloned test case which was disabled, the test case contained an assertion test step with grouped assertions
the cloned version does not have reference to the request message for any of the assertions that are grouped, the base level assertions were ok or at least appeared to be
the issue that then follows is that the actual assertions could not be configured to use the appropriate request (config box pops up allowing selection but cannot then save the change) and the assertion test step could not be deleted, had to revert back to an older backup xml project file that didnt contain the cloned test case and redo a chunk of work
without the cloned assertion step with 'DELETED' source references for the assertions all appears well in the world once more
