items are gone after log in

I logged into my new world (I just created it the prior day) and my items were gone, on both my person and my chests. sign posts were also reset.

I know little about the programming behind the games "curtain" as such. I can only guess. maybe I quit while I had a specific screen/menu open or something. I dont remember

unknown steps to produce, possibly
1 just start a world
2 log off
3 log on.