Everyone once in a while, we see something kind of weird in SharePoint, and the solution is super simple.

(THIS POST ASSUMES THAT YOUR SOLUTION IS DEPLOYED AND MANAGED AT THE SITE COLLECTION LEVEL.)

Here is the scenario:

• You have a SharePoint solution (WSP) with a couple of web parts in it…everything is running smoothly
• You add another web part to the solution
• The new web part works fine in your “DEV” site collection
• You deploy the WSP to your TEST/PROD environment and run the Update-SPSolution PowerShell command
• You browse to your site collection, edit a page, go to add your new web part to see it in action, and…
• WHERE IS MY NEW @*&#!#$ WEB PART!?!?!

Fortunately, the solution to this annoying issue is simple.  Go to your Site Collection features, Deactive and Re-Activate the solution’s feature on your site collection.  That’s it.

Told you…simple.

P.S. You can Retract/Delete/Add/Deploy until you are blue in the face…until you deactivate and re-activate, you are S.O.L.