So all of a sudden now, my bezier tool doesn't work. It will do the initial part of tracing out the area, but once I connect the two ends it disappears. I have run a repair on the software and tried uninstalling/reinstalling the software and nothing has fixed it. I have windows 10 if that helps.

update: the pencil is doing this, too.

Hhmm...trying to figure out what you mean by "beveling tool".

Is this an extension? Or a filter maybe? Or otherwise, where can I find this tool?

ok, fixing this because i'm an idiot and meant bezier tool...

Ooohh, ok!

No worries - I think I completely understand the problem. I think the last path you drew with that tool, you later made it either transparent, or to have zero width. So there's a good chance you know how to fix it, with that much info.

But just in case, look at Object menu > Fill and Stroke > Stroke Style tab > Width. Make sure that's higher than zero, and probably 1.0 is a good place to put it. If that looks already like it's ok, go to the Stroke Paint tab and look at the bar labelled A (which is for alpha). That controls the alpha level for whatever color it is. ("alpha" translates to "transparent") Or another place to check is the Opacity slider, at the bottom of the dialog.

And just for future reference, here's an article/tutorial I wrote, to help people find all the places in Inkscape where something could be transparent.

What To Do When A Tool Stops Working (Or Tools are Drawing Invisible Objects)

If you still can't fix it, you could give us an SVG file where you drew something with that tool, and we can probably find what's causing the problem.

well, that fixed it! thank you!

You're welcome