I noticed the other day when in the minimal default map, none of my changes were saving. I decided to create an open world map (32x32) and started to play with the landscaping tool. I saved several times (Ctrl+S and Ctrl+Shift+S) throughout to make sure my progress was being saved (a visible progress bar popped up when saving so I assume it did). I opened my project today and the landscape has disappeared.
The project was a blank blueprint game project with Starter Content enabled & Raytracing disabled, Maximum quality
when saving your project, did you have to specify a location to save your level?
If you saved your level you have to set it as the EditorStartupMap to show it on startup. You can find this option under ProjectSettings => Maps&Modes => EditorStartupMap
Thank you for your reply I figured out why it appeared to be missing. I noticed it was still in my outliner and I failed to realize that I needed to use the world partition tab to Load the landscape back in.
usually UE sets the starting level automatically but you can also set one yourself (Level x/y or last opened level …).
E.g.
you always want to start from level x or
you share your project to show features in level x
…
This setting is stored inside of DefaultEngine.ini inside the project. Imagine you have a problem with the current default starting map and maybe the project does not open. Then you can change this setting to force another map and try again.