SP2010 Target Audiences option missing from web part settings

Question

In a sudden the target audiences option in SharePoint 2010 web part settings gone missing. I have so far tried:

1. IISRESET
2. Checked the User Profile Service is running
3. Make sure the User Profile Service is listed in the web application's service connections
4. Publishing feature was not activated on both PRODUCTION and TEST environment. But the TEST environment target audiences working fine

Any help is much appreciated.

Regards, Alan

Answer 1

We had the same issue and we found a really simple (and stupid) solution that worked. Simply make a minor meaningless edit to your SharePoint's web.config like a space or something and save it. It worked for us. Here's where we found this solution:

https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/11184/target-audiences-property-not-visible-in-web-part-tool-pane

For us this issue started when we ran several updates this morning at 2:00 AM and rebooted.