Why did the Widgets button disappear from my Windows 11 taskbar?

Why did the Widgets button suddenly disappear from my Windows 11 taskbar, even though it was there before and I never turned it off in Settings? Why does right-clicking the taskbar show the Widgets option as enabled, but the button still refuses to appear no matter how many times I toggle it?

Could this be caused by a corrupted taskbar configuration, a recent update changing how Widgets are loaded, or a policy that's silently hiding it? And is there a way to bring the button back without resetting the entire taskbar layout or creating a new user profile?