Illustrator tools vanishing or not functioning at all

Looking for help with a reoccurring problem in illustrator. It keeps hiding my tools! I will be working in illustrator, switch to photoshop, come back to illustrator and all my tool panels will have vanished. Going to view and choosing (for example) show layers or show stroke does nothing. None of the tools will reappear. If I “reset essentials classic” the tool panels do reappear but NONE of the tools will function. I can click on them to no avail. Nothing works. My only solution is to restart the computer. About 1/2 the time the tools will reappear and illustrator will function again for a short while before hiding the tools again.

illustrator CC 23.0.2

mac 10.13.6