Downloads won't display in stacks

update: I remembered that some issues are solved by creating a new user profile. I created another user and the docked downloads works like default now. If anybody sees this, I wouldn't mind another solution that avoids having to restore my user profile with time machine to keep my old user profile settings and folders. It would be helpful if we worked out a solution that didn't involve wiping and starting from scratch. I am finding that is usually the final answer with Macs, unfortunately.

I now think I won't be able to restore with time machine because that takes you out of your user profile and uses migration assistant. It would just erase my progress making the new user profile.

Another option is to turn on file sharing but that won't transfer the applications and settings. If anybody can think of any simpler solutions that would fix it on the original user profile that would be helpful and save me a lot of twiddling my thumbs for file transfers and reinstalls of programs. I will keep both profiles for a while and just deal with the minor inconvenience until I can just set stuff up to transfer and install while I'm away.

Now I had some other issues and decided to try a clean install of Big Sur. It fixed the other issues but the docked downloads folder still displays incorrectly.

whoops