Contextual tool bar not always showing

I've been using the contextual bar a lot and love to use it all the time. But today, when working on my project, the toolbar disappears and won't show up. I checked the bar in the window and it does have a check mark, I uninstalled and reinstalled and still not working right. I'm messing around and discovering that it only appears for certain things. For example, it only appears when I select a path but not when I select something else. I'm so used to it appearing all the time, is there any way to fix this? it's driving me crazy!!