NPC/mobs mass despawning

I have a world where I had spawned a few animals and a few NPCs. The NPCs were fully coded to do things and the animals were in enclosures. I had loaded up the world multiple times throughout many days and there were no issues with despawning. Until after the most recent update. I loaded up the world on 10/18/2021 and all of the mobs/NPCs (named or not) despawned within my spawn radius. Everything I had placed in chunks away from my spawn were still present. Only the ones in my chunks had despawned. Never had this issue before. Kind of hard to make coded NPCs if they are going to keep despawning. But alas, that's why we do beta testing! Any feedback would be great. Thank you all from the community and the team!