Just want to add that the solution provided by @brand-rocket worked for me and that it was happening for a user that I had created through phpMyAdmin as @david_treblig indicated might be the cause.
TO be sure the steps that worked for me were:
– access the user profile
– “Disable the visual editor when writing” was unchecked so I checked it and selected “Update User”
– An Error about not having a nickname was displayed, so I added a nickname for the user
– I then checked the box to “Disable the visual editor…” and clicked “Update User”
– and finally I unchecked the box and saved again
And the editor was back!
I checked the wp_usermeta table and can see that the “rich_editing” row and about 20 other rows were the most recent additions to the table, so I think it is safe to assume that the rich_editing value was not present until some point in the process above – saving with the “nickname” may have been the step that created the row for “rich_editing” in the table which then allowed the editor to show.
Anyways, thanks @brand-rocket and @david_treblig for the push in the right direction.
