terrain tools break my game :(

hello! i’ve encountered a bug that causes terrain tools to totally break my game. i’ve been trying to build a pond for my home, so i’ll be working with the tools to dig holes, fill in water & shape a little detail around the pond. this works fine for a couple of minutes, until it suddenly decides to quit on me. my terrain tools stop working, most of the buttons stop reacting, i can still enter live mode, but i can’t unpause the game. i can fast forward 3x, but the game remains paused. i can’t save, or even exit the game, since the buttons don’t react when i click them. i’ve tried everything- i’ve turned mods off, removed all mods from the folder, repaired my game, switched lots, switched worlds, switched save files, even switched devices. the issue is there on my windows PC, and it’s still there on my macbook. i even started a new save file with bob the builder to encourage positive building vibes, none of it works :( i think it’s been 10-15 tries at this point, all of them resulting in me having to force quit my game, since i can’t even hit the exit button, as mentioned. i just wanted to become bob the builder & make a cute little pond, how do i fix this? </3