[wp-hackers] widget wp_options problems (disappearing widgets)

[Kevin Newman]

I recently had a problem with widgets disappearing from Wordpress.

I found a fix, if not the cause (I suspect it's old values that were not 
cleaned up in recent wordpress upgrades - shot in total darkness).

The problem was that for some reason, my values prevented the widget 
from showing up in the admin widget page. In a freshly installed 
Wordpress, the value is the same for every widget: 
a:2:{i:2;a:0:{}s:12:"_multiwidget";i:1;}

It doesn't seem to change when you move things around, and change 
settings, but my old blog has all kinds of varying info there.

The question is, should wordpress be updating these to the new default 
value? If so, it's an upgrade bug, and can easily be worked out in the 
next minor update.

If not, maybe we can setup a reset widget button - similar to the one 
that Justin Tadlock created with the "Widget Reset" plugin (which didn't 
work to fix this problem).

Again, resetting the widget_*** option in wp_options seems to have fixed 
my issue with disappearing widgets.

Anything that sheds light on this problem would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Kevin N.