There are no blocks in the block inserter, when you press the Add Block button in the widget area on the Widgets screen.

[thingsym]

Describe the bug

When there are no blocks in the widget area, I can't select a block because the block list is not displayed in the block inserter.

To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Make sure there are no blocks in the widget area of the Widgets screen
2. Click Add block button
3. The blank toolbar just disappears and nothing happens
4. Click Add block button again, the floated block inserter is displayed
5. Click Browse all, the block inserter is displayed
6. The block list is not displayed in the block inserter, you can only search

Expected behavior

• The block inserter should display the block list.
• Need the initial block Type / to choose a block in the widget area, if the widget area is blank.

Solution

It seems that the cause is that there is no block in the initial state in the widget area, so it is better to prepare the initial block Type / to choose a block like the post screen.

Additional context

• WordPress version 5.8-beta2
• Twenty Twenty-One Version: 1.3

[thingsym]

widgets screen screencast

[desrosj]

Moving to the milestone for investigation.

[desrosj]

Thanks for this report @thingsym.

I am still able to reproduce this on a fresh beta 3 install.

When the widget area is empty, the block insterter is indeed empty. This happens regardless of whether there were blocks in the sidebar when the page loaded.

I'm going to flag this with the editor team for further investigation.

[desrosj]

Opened ​https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/32931 for tracking upstream.

[noisysocks]

The fix looks like it should be entirely upstream so closing this in favour of GB32931.

[desrosj]

#53498 was marked as a duplicate.