sorry for the issue 
No worries.
Onwards and upwards! 
by user 908977119781060648
Just as explanation, the reason “nothing works” in that case is: when there is a compile error in a fresh project you’re opening, Unity doesn’t compile any scripts – so, no custom Menu Items show up, ScriptedImporters as are used for importing the prefabs here are not running so those Prefabs are not imported, etc.
Usually Unity should complain when opening such a project already and offering you to go into “Safe Mode”, do you recall if that happened?
Hi @herbst🌵… and huge thanks for the explanatory advice. It’s both interesting and useful. For reference, I definitely didn’t get get any prompts at all from Unity. Not even once on any of the repeated attempts to get a project started.
by user 908977119781060648
Usually Unity shows a popup window before the editor even opens if the project has compiler errors (which was the reason here) or missing packages - in your case you created a new project and then installed the package I assume ?
Yup, that was my workflow.
by user 908977119781060648
Understood! Thanks for the additional context
Thank you, both, for all the help. It’s greatly appreciated, cheers!
by user 908977119781060648