”Find my” widget not working on iphone 17

‘Upgraded’ to an iPhone 17 (not a patch on my 11 … but the speakers work!)

i have a stack on my desktop that contains 4 “Find my” items. This worked beautifully on my old phone, as it does on both of my iPads (non-glass!)

On my ‘upgraded’ phone, the widgets stay as grey rectangles … no location found’. There is a location (on my ipads) … which suggests that the stalked people are online and their devices are pinging the apple servers.

if, on my new iPhone, i launch ‘find my” then I see their locations (eventually … even this is slow), after which the widgets seem to work correctly.

i have restarted the phone, added/removed the widgets etc. but I have failed to find settings about the “Find My”widgets in the settings app for working in the background … what have I missed?