I opened up my X2 for the 1st time in 6 months. I need to extract timing of a clip. Pressed A for the palette. It comes on but it won't turn on. Any idea what the problem might be? Nothing has changed about my pc in over a year... Thanks!

Is it a groove clip? If so, you will need to bounce to clip(s) before you can use audio snap. I also believe any region effects on a clip will prevent using audio snap (in that region).

It's not a groove clip. I simply loaded the wav file into track 1 in a blank template. Nothing else at all in the project. Corrupt, maybe?

I am at a loss for "why" on this one. Hopefully someone else can chime in. I just opened X2 to test what you are saying... new project, one audio track, import audio, left click the clip to give it focus and hit A. The palette opens enabled.
 
Unless the track's view is set to "Audio Trnsnts" no editing can be done, however. Maybe I should have asked that first. Hitting the "Edit Clip Map" button automatically shifts the track's view to audio transients.

Set the track's Edit Filter to Transients, and make sure the clip is selected.

I went back to the manual and followed verbatim multiple times. Did a shutdown/restart to no avail. I hate doing reinstalls. Maybe I'll just get X3 if I hafta do that...

as dave  said, make sure the clip is selected, a rokkie mistake that I still make now and then.
1- select clip
2- change edit filter
3- press Keyboard shortcut "A"

Sadly, for whatever reason - It's broken.