Help! Can't resize text boxes anymore, or change from point-area text box

[AVDAdobe]

My illustrator became wonky with my text box bounding box. For instance, when I hover the cursor with selection V, there are no longer options to resize or rotate the bounding box of a text box. As well, the options to click back and forth between point and area text are no longer there. Another weird effect is the only way to change the size of the text box is by selecting anchor points individually. Other pieces of the puzzle: 

I've restarted illustrator a few times + restarted my computer and it's still happening. It happens in existing saved files as well as creating new ones. 

Attached screenshots. Hoping I may have something checked accidentally...

[AVDAdobe]

Edit to add, this is also happening with ALL my bounding boxes such as shapes. There are no cursor hover options to resize/rotate anything. 

[Ton Frederiks · Accepted solution]

View > Show Bounding Box?

[AVDAdobe]

Oh my... Yes. Thank you so much.

I thought I had checked and unchecked it to test but apparently I'm sillier than I thought. 

[Ton Frederiks]

Good to hear that worked.

[Marne Hunt]

Wasted hours trying all manner of options to no avail.  Thank you, Ton Frederiks.  And, I updated Creative Cloud and Illustrator trying to figure it out on my own. 

[maxglitz]

THANKS! I was accidentally using the keyboard shortcut Command Shift B used for hiding and showing the bounding box while attempting to use it for another unrelated purpose altogether from another app. I never even realized I was hiding the bounding box, and was likely not even working with text when I fired it off. Then several minutes later I wondered why I couldn't change a text box shape. Seems I'm going to continue doing this absent mindedly forever, so I disabled the shortcut in Illustrator. Not that hard to go up to the menu for the few times I ever do want to hide/show. And ALWAYS hard to remember months later what it was that made me search for the solution to my problem again. Like TODAY. 

[CBiagi]

Sheeeesh... I was looking everywhere, thank you.

[Jacob Bugge]

AVD,

Unless you get a better suggestion, and unless it only happens in a specific document, you can try the following (excerpts from a longer list)

1) Close down Illy and open again;

2) Restart the computer (you may do that up to at least 5 times);

3) Log out of your Adobe account and log back in;

4) Close down Illy and press Ctrl+Alt+Shift/Cmd+Option+Shift during startup (easy but irreversible);

5) Follow the instructions here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/setting-preferences.html#setting_illustrator_preferences.

You can take a backup of the folders if you like your preferences, to avoid losing them in vain. Location is mentioned in the article.

[manita20]

Your answer was such a ray of sunlight Ton Frederikes. I don't use AI much so I just used the workaround and created a new text box based on my size requirements. I want to laugh at myself .... the solution was so simple. Thank you.

[Ton Frederiks]

Good to hear that helped!

[June Rabbit]

For some reason, Illustrator just did this same thing to me today (03/26/2024) with version 28.1. This is the first time in more than 5 years it was set to hide the bounding box when I opened the program. I'm glad there is an easy fix (View > Show Bounding box).