Lasso and patch tool can't select anything

[Arcterex]

This comes up a bunch lately.  Sometimes when using the lasso or patch healing tool don't work.  I can select the tool, but when I try to draw on the image nothing happens.  Nothing shows on the history panel and there are no matching ants showing.

This just happened again now, I was using the patch tool on an image with no issues, left the computer for 5-10 minutes or so, came back and suddenly it was suddenly not working.  Sometimes cmd-tabbing to a different window will work, or switching to another tool and back will make it start working again, but sometimes I have to fully quit and restart Photoshop.

Any ideas?

Mac / Majove / CC fully updated as of 2019-10-27.

[JJMack]

Do you have a layer targeted and is that layer visible and have pixels?  Selection work on a targeted layer. There need to be pixels that can be selected.  However you should be able to set an active selection for some area even in a empty layer. You can fill that selection many ways.  If you can not make an active selection with the lasso tool try resetting your Photoshop preferences. Also if you have updated your Mac OS make sure you have install the CC 2019 20.0.7 update. I use Windows and have not seen a problem like you have

[Arcterex]

I'll try the preferences reset, just in case. But yes, I'm fully up to date on the software and I am on the last major macOS version. I've swapped layers and I know I'm on the right one 😞

It's odd that a restart fixes the issue - not sure if this negates a corrupted preferences file though.