Are you using this installation of Firefox in a managed environment such as a company network? Administrators might be able to restrict Firefox features using Policy. (This also can be done by placing a policies.json file on your computer, even outside a company network.)

There's a page in Firefox that should show policies being applied to your Firefox, so you can check that by typing or pasting about:policies in the address bar and pressing Enter to load it. Anything there related to passwords?

See also:

• https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates/blob/master/README.md

Earlier this week I was able to see the "eye" and use it. I don't recall any updates since then. Now today I am unable to unmask my passwords.

Well... frustrating. I do NOT know what happened, but I shut down my laptop yesterday and when I booted it back up this morning... the "eye" was there! ugh... Can't live with out technology... can't live with it sometimes!