Search Bar and Tabs Bar not showing all the time (my preference).

I have upgraded to a Macbook pro 2023 M2 Tahoe, and reinstalled firefox. When I open it, the search bar & my tabs all show as expected, but then disappear, can't find them. I have to close and open again to get back them back. I have googled this, tried some things (about:config - made sure "browser.fullscreen.auto hide" is set to false). I do not have a setting "always show toolbar in full screen" as suggested by google search. This shouldn't be that hard! Any thoughts? thanks!