I've been using inkscape for very amateur illustration purposes for almost a year, and I've never encountered this problem before.

I created some inkscape files today and saved, I've reopened and worked on them several times.
However, when I just opened one and tried to edit, my paint bucket tool would not work. I had a simple rectangle shape that I wished to color in, but when I used the paint bucket tool to fill it in, nothing happened. The painted space appeared with the stretchable arrows around it, but when I went to "object fill and stroke" i could not make the color show up. The opacity is not disabled. In addition, when I tried to use the circle creator, , inkscape responds by showing me an empty box with the stretch arrows to alter the shape, but there is no shape in the box. I click on the color pallet on the bottom of the screen, yet the shape remains uncolored. I've closed the files several times and have restarted my computer. I cannot find out why this has happened.

Thanks,
owskiii

Welcome owskiii!

Hhm...hard to say what's happening, but my first guess would be that you are trying to draw/paint on an inactive layer You can quickly check that by looking at the Layer dropdown at the bottom of the window. It should be displaying the layer that you're trying to draw/paint on. If not, select the proper layer, and you should be back in business.

Also, sometimes you might have accidentally double clicked a Group, which allows to you to enter a group without Ungrouping (happens to me ALL the time, lol). In that case, you'll have something like "#gXXXX" in the Layer dropdown. Again, just select the proper layer, to fix it.

Let us know how it goes though. There could be other causes....

in your preferences you probably have last used (fill and stroke) checked. Or worse, you have use this object's own style checked, and a style of no fill and no stroke defined. solution create an object with the style set manually to what you want and then in preferences press the set from selected.
But maybe it's something else entirely... need more info.

Thank you for both responding!
Still no dice though.
I've been trying to troubleshoot a lot, keeping things simple with only 1 Layer.
Here is some more detail on what I'm having issues with:

1. When I use the ellipse tool I can click and drag to create an ellipse, however no shape exists on screen when I'm doing this. All I can see to let me know how large the ellipse will be is by the dotted line selection box around the shape with the size adjustment arrows around it. If I click outside the box, the dotted line disappears as it should, thereby de-selecting the shape. When I click and drag around that area on the screen to select the "invisible" shape, it allows me to select the shape, but still is not visible. While having it selected, I can then go to my "object fill and stroke" menu. The stroke and fill are enabled, yet those colors do not appear on the shape. Literally nothing will effect the shapes color so that I can see it. This is all the default stuff that happens directly when I open inkscape. It's not from working in a window for a while when I've altered settings. This action was the first thing I did in a new window. This is the same case with When any of these tools are used, nothing appears on screen.

2. After opening a new window to troubleshoot my second problem with the paint bucket, this is what happens.
The first thing I did was click on the biezer curve/pen tool . I create a simple polygon or closed curved path having maybe 8 nodes. I used to be able to click on the paint bucket tool then click inside the closed path to color the inside of the shape. Nothing happens now when I do this. Even clicking the color palette bar along the bottom of the screen does nothing to alter the color of the paint. To color the closed path, I MUST select it, then go to object fill and stroke. Once I select the fill tab and select "flat" color, i can then select the color from the color palette along the bottom of the screen to change the shape's color. This never used to happen. Furthermore, as described in the preceding sentence, normally once I select "flat" coloring for the fill of an object, I can simply select a color along the bottom of the screen. Then, I used to be able to select the "stroke paint" tab, select "flat" coloring and click a color along the bottom of the screen to change that paint of the stroke coloring. THIS NO LONGER WORKS NOW TOO. When I have the "stroke paint" tab selected with "flat" coloring enabled and click a color along the bottom of the screen, this changes the fill of the shape, despite being in the "stroke paint" tab of "object fill and stroke"

These problems never used to occur, and are now all simultaneous. To restate, all of these occur directly when opening a new inkscape window.
Worse comes to worse, I may just uninstall and reinstall the program.

Thanks, and I apologize for the lengthy and wordy explanations. Just tryin to be thorough.
--Owskiii

Could you attach sample SVG files here with some objects from both scenarios (1 - certain tools create 'invisible' shapes, 2 - fill/stroke tab have switched their function) to allow others to inspect the SVG source? Possibly your default template was changed…

owskiii wrote:These problems never used to occur, and are now all simultaneous. To restate, all of these occur directly when opening a new inkscape window.
Worse comes to worse, I may just uninstall and reinstall the program.

Before reinstalling try resetting the preferences (those would survive a reinstallation anyway and any settings that might cause your troubles will stick):
You don't tell which OS you are using, so I assume it's Windows ( ):

1. quit all running Inkscape instances
2. rename %APPDATA%\Inkscape\preferences.xml [1] or move it to a temp location (keeping it as backup)
3. restart Inkscape

[1] for %APPDATA% see Environment variables - Default Values on Microsoft Windows

Not to belittle ~suv's message, but I was also going to suggest uploading a sample SVG file. Just draw this stuff, even though it does not show up, save and upload it. (Full editor, Upload attachment tab)

Plus, are you saying that Shapes and the Paint Bucket don't work, but the Pen does??? Yeah, that IS weird.

I had the exact same problem.

I eventually realised my Opacity was set to 0%

Changing this in the footer set everything back to normal.

Hope this helps someone.