Content Aware Scale just not working despite everything

EDIT:

Got it to work. Needed to rasterize the layer I was working on and that solved all my needs.

Hey all,

I've been trying to troubleshoot this problem anyway I can for the past 6 hours now. I've looked at Youtube videos, asked people on Discord, reset my PS settings/preferences, reset my computer. You name it, I've most likely done it. Now I'm more than stumped and extremely frustrated that I cannot find the issue to this problem.

I've been trying to utilize the Content Aware Scale feature to stretch out some of my photos for a website banner. The main thing I guess that would be different (?) is that I'm using the rectangular marquee tool for a specific area, maybe it doesn't like that? However, upon trying to do this, I am not even given the option to scale it, it just remains greyed out. I've tried with about a dozen different photos, nothing. I've tried with a clear/concrete background, nothing. I've tried using Command J to make it a layer and scale. It worked, BUT did not match the quality of the original when stretched (not pressing shift led to the H being some 43000 pixels, holding shift made it not blend at all).

So, I'm asking here to see if someone much more knowledgable can help me resolve this since I don't know what else to do at this point. Thanks in advanced! I attached a screenshot to kind of illustrate the problem with a file I'm working on too 🙂