I have noticed something odd with placing list view webparts: they disappear at odd times. I place them on the page and do something such as editing the webpart, etc. and then they’re just suddenly gone. I’ve seen this on SharePoint 2013 as well as SharePoint 2010/2013 Online, with IE9, IE10 and Chrome.
When I go to re-add the webpart to the page, I suddenly get “Wiki [2]” as a webpart title, which means that the webparts aren’t completely disappearing – they’re still there, somewhere.
By going to the webpart maintenance page (add ?contents=1) to the end of the URL), I can see that the webparts is open on the page. But… I can’t see it.
I found Jennifer Mason’s blog on SharePoint 2010, Office365: Why does my web part randomly disappear?!? which also looks at the webpart maintenance page. She has a really good tip: close the webpart via the maintenance page, then re-add it to the page via Add Webpart -> Closed webparts. Voilá – it was back on the page.
However, the webpart disappeared as soon as I tried to save the page. It even disappeared when I hit “Edit Webpart” – I had the edit webpart dialogue but no webpart.
I started checking the HTML source of the zones, to see if the webpart code changed at all to cause this issue. Long story short – the problem doesn’t seem to be there.
At one point, since I was working with simple wiki pages, I edited the webpart without editing the page first. And suddenly it all worked perfectly.
So, when you’re bashing your head against the wall or are just very tired of configuring list webparts that won’t hang around, do the following:
- Add the webpart(s) to the page.
- Save the page
- Edit the webparts without editing the page first
Hannah's SharePoint 
I’m having the problem of disappearing content editor web parts on a Sharepoint 2013 wiki page. There doesn’t seem to be a way to edit the web part without editing the page first. Any thoughts?
Have you tried hovering your mouse over the toolbar to get the dropdown, without putting the page into edit mode?
When I hover over the Webpart I get a popup description of the webpart, but no dropdown. I’m signed in with full permissions.
Did you ever resolve this Greg? I’m having the same issue and do not have the option of editing the web part without editing the page. Jennifer’s solution did not work either.
Sorry to hijack your blog Hannah. Just hoping to find and provide solutions for others.
I had the same strange behavior when saving webpart pages into a document library, when I moved the wepart pages to the “SITE ASSETS” folder, the behavior disappeared
Interesting! Why would you want to save pages anywhere except a pages or site pages library?
Thank you so much! That helped me perfectly!
Glad to help and thanks for the feedback!
Thank you for this!!! Exactly what I needed!
Awesome, so glad it helped you!
SharePoint 2013 Enterprise environment. I have a Script Editor on a wiki page. I can see that it is running properly. However, when I edit the page, the Script Editor web part is invisible to me.
I can see the web part via the Web Part Maintenance Page.
Why is it invisible? I have one theory. I added the Script Editor web part to an out-of-the-box EnterpriseWiki.aspx page. I later customized EnterpriseWiki.aspx. There is a possibility that my Script Editor web part became invisible as a result of that customization.
This has helped me so much. I have researched this issue over and over and finally a solution that actually works and someone that actually understands the problem. Amazing!!
Hannah, I’m having this same problem. My list library web part disappears. I closed and added it back again, but once I hit save it disappears again. I don’t understand the part
“Save the page
Edit the webparts without editing the page first”
I’m using sharepoint 2016 and after saving the page there is no way I can edit the web part because it doesn’t give me the option to edit it.
I appreciate the help!
My issue is that I cannot figure out how to “edit the webpart without editing the page first.” The only way I can “briefly” catch a glimpse of the webpart is when i go to the maintenance page, close it, then add it through the edit page and insert through closed webpart’s. as soon as i hit save or attempt to edit the webpart or basically anything it just disappears. What I always have to do is put the page in edit > edit a random webpart > insert the closed webpart > edit source. this gets me the source then i delete the webpart and re-add a new one and input the code into the new one. I would LOVE a way to keep the currently created webpart. =D
Thank you, I was getting crazy over that issue!