How do I delete a variable when the red X is not activated?

Welcome to E-Learning Heroes, Jason!

First, please make sure you're working with local project files:

• Work on your local drive (your C: drive). Working on a network drive or a USB drive can cause erratic behavior, including file corruption, loss of audio, and other unexpected behavior. 
• You should also make sure the directory path to your project files and your published output is less than 260 characters (for example C:\Articulate).
• Avoid using special characters, accents or symbols in your file names (this includes spaces and underscores).

Additional information regarding "Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces" in Windows operating systems can be found in the following Microsoft article.

If you are working locally, please make sure that you're using the most recent version of Storyline. To find this information click on "Help" and "About Articulate Storyline". If you're not currently using version 3 (1305.2012), please download and install the update from the link below:

Articulate Storyline > Download Update 3

If the problem continues, you may be able to remove these variables by importing the slides from your original course into a new file. Please create a new, blank Storyline course and import the slides from your first file. If you need information on how to import from another course, please take a look at the following tutorial:

Importing from Another Storyline Project

I hope this helps!