Unable to use selection tools in Particle Edit mode

I can use A to select all, and the Select Random tool works as well. But, RMB and border select do nothing… I think select linked does nothing either but I’m not sure how to use that one.

I just upgraded to Blender 2.78 in hopes it would fix it, but it did not. I also uninstalled the add-ons I had.

Am I missing something obvious?

Also, I can’t figure out how to get the dots between the segment sections to display as seen in the images on this page https://www.blender.org/manual/physics/particles/mode.html

And finally, when I render, the children seem to change shape. After a Cycles render, the hair in the display looks different than it did before. If I enter particle edit, it jumps back to the way it was. That is not as important for me to solve as the above issues.



On the right, the way it looks before rendering, or after snapping back after entering particle edit mode. On the left, how it appears in the viewport after rendering in Cycles (also looks this way in the render).

Use one of the select modes https://www.blender.org/manual/physics/particles/mode.html#select-modes

Thank you! I should have read that page to the end…

I figured out the problem. I had a subdivision surface applied to the mesh which happened before the particle system in the stack order, which was correct, however I had turned off the display in the viewport while combing. The problem with the hair children misbehaving is also to do with using Interpolated vs. Simple children, which makes the hairs in the middle look strange.