why does the toolbox and catalog windows disappear?

[lindatomaselli]

I am working along and then all of a sudden the toolbox disappears.  When I click on the icon, nothing happens.

Then I discovered that I could get the toolbox by clicking on the catalog button.  But now that has disappeared also.  Where did they go, and how can I get them back?  Once this happened, they are gone for any other session that I open.

[DanPatterson_Retired]

Lucky for you there is old school menus

catalog -  Windows, then select catalog

Arctoolbox - Geoprocessing then Arctoolbox

If they still dont reappear, then you will have to reset your application profile, for which there innumerable threads referring to this.

[lindatomaselli]

Nope. I tried both and neither worked.

How do I reset my application profile?

Why would this happen so randomly?

[lindatomaselli]

Thanks for your quick reply.

The instructions to reset the application profile look forbidding. This never happened in 10.4. If I reinstall 10.4, will I lose my models?

[XanderBakker · Accepted solution]

First try to delete the normal.mxt as described in this thread: https://community.esri.com/message/601983?commentID=601983#comment-601983