Boolean Problem with not generating new Difference faces

Question

I am not sure if something I changed is creating this problem (maybe something to do with culling faces?) but when I have an object and I attempt to use Bool Tools to cut the first selected item out of the second selected item and I hit [CTRL]+[numpad +] it cuts it out, and shows my cutter as a wireframe, but it doesn't generate faces in the shape of my cutter on the object being cut. I am including a screenshot of how it looks. I turned on normals so you can see that it is showing the inside of the object that is being cut out rather than showing new faces where it should have been cut.

Answer 1

I had created a simple box with an inset and internal "extrusion" with a bevel. Then I duplicated it and "joined" the two boxes. Then continued to have internal hidden surfaces that were overlapping with curves due to bevels. When I attempted to apply a "difference" boolean operation using Bool Tools, it didn't generate the new faces.

I stepped backward and instead did the following:

1. I create the initial inset and extruded and beveled boxes, and overlapped them like before.
2. This time I applied a union boolean operation to the two cubes instead of just joining them, which removed the hidden faces
3. Finally I created the cutter and used bool tools to difference the cutter on the unionized boxes.

It created the faces, but it also applied the earlier boolean union on the boxes at the same time. I was hoping it would be completely non-destructive, but it wasn't. So maybe the lesson is: duplicate and hide shapes that are unioned non-destructively before adding a cutter using a difference boolean, so you can roll back if needed.