Graphics modeling tool panel not opening

[jellowone]

This has been working just fine but all a sudden the ribbon disappear.  This I fix by going to "Customize"/"Show UI"/"Show ribbon".  Now the ribbon is there and I have an editable poly on screen, in edit mode, and vertex chosen.  The "Graphite modeling tool" options shows up on the ribbon but the panels which used to be open will not open unless I click on it.  How can I get them to remain open for selection.

Please help as this is driving me batty.  FWIW, I have gone and deleted the ENU file.

[RobH2]

Since you've tried the ENU I can tell you that I had the same issue with Max 2018 once. I could not fix it any other way than to completely uninstall Max, clean up the registry and reinstall. That fixed it.