LibreOffice returning itself to default settings --- WHY?

I opened LO today like other days, and there was a message under the menu that said something like “you are running LO 6.3” - with an invitation to “find out more” as if it were a fresh install of the upgraded version. I have my update settings set to notify, but not download upgrades. I am currently running 6.3.0.4, but 6.3.1 is available so it did not just upgrade.

Yet many of my settings, including sidebar, menus, file locations, recently accessed documents, have returned to default settings though extensions seemed to remain available. Why might this be? Are previous settings stored anywhere?

This has happened several times in the past.

Windows 10 did crash out of the previous session, but I do not think I had LO open at the time - could this have affected anything?

I keep files like autocorrect on dropbox, so they are available on whatever computer I happen to be working on, if this makes any difference.

After re-doing file locations, clicking “update” was not sufficient to re-initialize my file locations. I needed to exit and re-open LO. This seems inappropriate as well.

Your user profile might have gotten corrupted. Try to reset it and restore desired settings from backup(s).