Deploying a Factory Default Widget Provider removes widgets from pages

Hi Steve, have you taken a look at our developer training on  Managing Widget Source and Distribution ? Your widget may have been deleted if it was not detected in the file manifest when updated. 

The widgets themselves haven't been deleted, they're still there in the Widget Studio, they've been removed from the pages that they where on.

I've checked the file manifest, and the widgets are all listed there.

Do the widgets have the same identifiers and apply to the same theme? If the identifier or theme relationship changed, that could cause the widget to not be available when rendering (which results in the widget not appearing). 

Unless you have other logic that adjusts page definitions, the platform does not alter page definitions based on factory default provider changes (even when  installing updates through the widget versioning API).

The widgets have the same identifiers on both the development and UAT environment. They both say "Not Themed" in the theme field

Were the widgets present when the page is in edit mode? If the widget has an error or doesn't render any content (perhaps due to a deployment/encoding issue or bug within the widget), the widget will not render on the page but should still be represented (especially if the widget is present in Widget Studio) in edit mode.

Does any other process occur as part of a UAT deployment in your environment that may edit pages?

No, the widgets had completely gone from the pages in edit mode.

No other process happens as part of the deployment, just copying up the latest version of the widget factory

At this point, we'll need to ask for theme exports and potentially review the source of your factory default widget provider. That is outside of the scope of the public support forums. Could you open a support ticket to continue the investigation of this issue? 

Thanks Ben ,I will