Wandering Trader not spawning and/or despawning from world, or spawn cycle broken

honestly the internet provided no help so...

i got a Desert Hills Floating islands survival world and within the first 10 or so days I did initially get a Wandering trader spawn and i was hoping to get a sapling from him but unfortunately no luck all he had was flowers and other sucky things i didnt want so i decided to wait and let him despawn and hoped in about another 10 days he would come back. I am building this really big base, about 80 by 40 blocks with a primarily single slab (top half) floor i figured because of mob spawning rules that it would probably not spawn in my base so i basically settled about 20 blocks or so away from the build. I've gotten to at least day 76 in game and the dude never came back so safely at least ~60 days without a trader spawn, i know the rules of there cant be more than 1 in the world which means either he never despawned and is wandering forever somewhere far off or nearby where i cant find him, or something is wrong with the spawn mechanics making him spawn far off, out of sight, or not at all. idk if height is a factor either because average topmost layer of the world is about y60 there is a good chance of caves somewhere below me but idk if the code or something would spawn him where i cant see him. I've seen reports of traders not spawning along with pillagers not spawning but i still get regular pillager patrols so im frustrated that i basically lost my only method of obtaining a tree in a single desert biome

This was over multiple sessions so quitting and rejoining didnt help anything