Incorrect display of feature outline mask

[CharlottePeters2]

Hi,

I can't figure out why the feature outline mask for my cities feature class is not masking correctly.

This is what I did:

1. I changed the color of my map background to blue
2. Created unlinked annotation feature class for cities (the city feature class resides in a different GDB)
3. Edited the location of some of the city annotations
4. Created a feature outline mask on the city annotation feature class
5. Changed the mask symbology to transparent
6. Right click LAYERS>>advanced drawing options>>selected my feature outline mask on left of list>>selected my county datasets on the right
   1. The yellow county dataset is the same as the gray county dataset, but with a definition query applied to it. Don't know if that makes a difference.

Result is that the blue map background shows through all the vector data layers where the mask should be and it looks like the mask covers the original locations of the city annotations.

I've tried:

• Changing the map background color to none, but then the blue areas are replace by white.
• Deleting the spatial index for the mask
• Changing which layers were being masked
• Moving annotation to a new file geodatabase

Thanks.