Widgets not visible

It’s likely a plugin or your theme is interfering with normal operation. Isolate the cause by switching to Twenty Twenty-one theme and deactivating all plugins. Widgets added to the back end widget screen should now appear on the site just as widgets added through the customizer would.

The 2021 theme’s widget areas will likely be different than your normal theme’s. Still, widgets added in the back end should appear somewhere on the page. Restore your normal theme and plugins, one at a time, until the problem returns. Seek further assistance through the dedicated support channel of the responsible module.

Nope, doesn’t work. Here are the steps I took.

1) Switched to 2021 theme.
2) Disabled all plugins.
3) Went to backend widgets area and created a widget in the “footer.”
4) Clicked on “Update” – no indication widgets were updated.
5) In frontend, widget created from backend doesn’t appear.
6) Visit backend widget area – blank. No widget saved.
7) Used customizer. Created widget, hit “publish.”
8) Widget appears on frontend.

Not sure what the problem is, but for now, I’m creating/editing widgets via customizer.

I enabled the “Classic Widgets” plugin and the widgets appear in the backend and the front.

I’m glad you found a workaround.

The difference between customizer and widgets admin screen is they save data differently. The admin screen saves via the REST API, the customizer saves via Ajax request. No idea what the plugin does.

There’s apparently an issue with your API’s functioning. If there are no themes or plugins interfering, the usual cause for API malfunction is in the server’s configuration. For example, sometimes modSecurity inadvertently blocks API requests.