Hi @skigirl1369,
The reason why you’re seeing the endless loading animation is because when WPP tries to fetch the widget the REST API responds with a 404 error (I probably should add a fallback message saying “Couldn’t load widget” or something like that).

From previous reports this is likely an issue caused by Elementor itself. Try disabling WPP’s Ajaxify Widget option (Settings > WordPress Popular Posts > Tools, under Data) and see if that helps. If not and if you’re adding the widget to an Elementor sidebar instead of a WordPress sidebar then you might need to report the issue to the Elementor team so they can look into it.
That fixed it. THANK YOU!!!!!!