Yeah, the ads vanishing act is way more common than people realise-and it freaks everyone out the first time. What you're describing is basically standard behaviour when an ad's under review or approved but not actively serving.
Google Ads has this annoying habit of hiding approved ads from the main view if they're not eligible to serve right now. Could be your campaign's paused, budget's tapped out, or targeting's too tight. They haven't actually vanished, the default filters just sweep them out of sight.
Quick fix: switch the status filter at the top of the ads tab from "enabled" to "all" or "approved" and they should pop back up. Also worth double-checking that your ad groups have active keywords and your bids aren't too low to win auctions.
Another thing a lot of people miss-did you get an approval email? Sometimes ads get slapped for policy reasons (trademark issues, unclear landing pages) and you won't spot the red flags unless you look at the status column.
If they're still playing hide and seek, drill down into the specific ad group and check the ads tab inside there. The view sometimes glitches and you need to go one level deeper.
How long's the campaign been running, and what's your daily budget? That often dictates how fast things move through review and start serving.
