Selection disappears after moving from selection tool to brush

[blogsofwardotme]

I have done this  thing for years so something must be wrong with my layers. I need to clean up the area in top left bit by bit.
I pasted a vertical piece at the top left of the image in the top layer. In this situation I usually clean up the excess with a brush in a mask on the side. I did as follows:
1. made a selection  from the image part of the layer. If I click once inside the selection it stays, If I click twice it disappears.
2. move to the mask
3.switch from selection to brush tool
4. selection in image disappears 
I am doing all this because I can't run the brush in a straight line.
The selection is large compared to the tiny area I need to remove, but I think that I am in the right layer.
I also tried a New from visible on top, selecting always from the image part of the layer of course, add mask, but selection disappears as I add the mask. Thank you.

[Ofnuts]

Looks like the selection is not shown (but is still probably there and active) once you have "committed" it (double-lick or tool switch), which would indicate that you have unknowingly disabled View > Show selection.

[blogsofwardotme]

Actually it was shown, with the circles at the end on the left. Made sure I "committed" only once.
View/show selection was already ticked. Unticked and riticked. I press the brush in it, and ..puff it's gone.

[Ofnuts]

(08-10-2025, 07:39 PM)blogsofwardotme Wrote: Actually it was shown, with the circles at the end on the left. Made sure I "committed" only once.
View/show selection was already ticked. Unticked and riticked. I press the brush in it, and ..puff it's gone.

The circles are the selection tool in action, they aren't the marching ants that indicate where the selection is, whatever the tool.