I hope that somebody can provide some help here, because this is driving me up the wall.

I am starting from an image that consists simply of a single layer, a black background. I want to add some white text on this background. So, I select the background layer, and then the text tool (T in the toolbox.) With this, I click on the black background and, sure enough, the little text window, where I can type my text, pops up. Here is where the problems begin.

Most of the times, when I type some text in the text window, I get nothing on the background, and not text layer is added. However, some other times, mysteriously (to me) the text layer is added and, yes! I can see my text appearing on the background, as I type it in the text window.

What are the steps that guarantee this successful result everyt time. I find it very frustrating, as you can imagine, that this sometimes works, and I don't yet know why that is the case. What usually happens is that I try it first, and it doesn't work, as described above. Then, in frustration, I start clicking with the mouse just above everywhere, and touching different buttons till, all of a sudden, things work as expected.

Suggestions, anyone?

Most of the times, when I type some text in the text window, I get nothing on the background, and not text layer is added. . . .

This doesn't match any widely reported bug I know about. Of course if you type black text on a black background, you won't see the text, but you should still see the layer boundary in yellow even in that case.

It is most certainly not a bug; it's just that I am a nitwit: I wanted to add the layer to the background layer, and the latter was not selected. Please, accept my apologies.