does this only happen in the Escapade theme?

@TomJNowell - No, as mentioned it doesn't work in the standard wordpress theme either.

have you modified any files in wp-includes or wp-admin? 3rd party theme support questions are off topic here and will get your question closed. Are you sure it's actually password protected? Does it say it's password protected in the WP Admin area? I think the people suggesting you add the feature back in by adding something to functions.php are making guesses and have never done this as it doesn't make much sense

No modifications to those files to my knowledge, though there is shared management of the site. It does say it is password protected when I edit the page. Given this question seems to imply themes play into core functionality of Wordpress, I am surprised that they have been deemed off topic.

it could be as simple as someone hid the password field with CSS in the customiser and it's still there, but there's so little useful information in the question it's difficult to diagnose, and your responses have eliminated a lot of obvious causes. Can you confirm, the issue happens in an unmodified WP with a default theme ( unmodified twentytwenty for example ) and no plugins activated? And that the password form is actually missing and not just hidden?

And can you eliminate the possibility of modified WordPress by replacing the wp-admin and wp-includes folders with the unmodified good versions rom a WP download?

And where can we find an example?

@TomJNowell - Wouldn't hiding the field with CSS not show the content, as it currently does, but a blank part of the page where the content is? I have no ability to install a unmodified WP on this same server, but deactivating all plugins and switching to TwentyTwentyfour didn't resolve the issue. Swapping out those folders is helpful to know, but not possible given the ramifications of it being unavailable while root level access is acquired to the server to restore them. Sorry, can't provide an example, as the page is to be non-viewable by the public. Any other way we can address this?

you can specify not to display something in CSS, that doesn't mean there'll be a gap where it was. Also the twentytwentyfour theme doesn't exist ( twentytwentytwo is still being built ). Use the browsers developer tools too inspect the area that it should be located in. Right now there is no useful information that can be used to diagnose the problem here. Did you replace the WordPress folders like I suggested? Why is root level access required? Clearly there is something in your install, either in files or the database that is not present on other installs

Can you confirm that the form isn't being hidden by CSS? Actually check and confirm it, even if you don't believe it's possible. Also note that your question still specifically mentions a 3rd party theme, and people have been voting to close it as off-topic, you should edit your question to make that clear, not everybody will read the comments

@TomJNowell - Sorry, should mention I am aware of what CSS is, and what it is capable of. No div for password prompt present using Inspect in Chrome. There is however page contents (both on screen and in Inspect in Chrome) that should be hidden if there is css to hide the password prompt (to my understanding; If this is incorrect it isn't really protection against showing the content ;) ). Apologies for my typo. Where I said twentytwentyfour, I meant twentytwenty)

I don't have any access to the underlying wordpress files, root or not. I am hence not aware what Linux group they belong to, so dropped in root to be a catchall, not specifically needing it. I don't see any downvotes, nor am I aware of what edits are needed to make something you say is off topic (a theme in Wordpress), to be on topic. Given though themes in Wordpress seem to handle some functionality outside of visual aspects, I still find it strange that they are completely banned being posted about. I find it akin to Windows control panel being off topic on a Windows help site.

3rd party theme dev support is off-topic, so if you ask specifically about Escapade you'll get closed as off-topic, those are the stacks rules. You've already said this happens in all themes though so this is not specific to a 3rd party theme, yet you did not update your question to reflect this. As a result people are reading your question and voting to close it. You could edit your question to make it clear this isn't about that specific theme but you have chosen not to. One more vote and it won't matter wether I'm trying to help you or not

As for access to WP files, can't you ask the person/people who set up WordPress? Are you actually on a managed host but haven't mentioned it? E.g. WordPress.com or WP Engine etc? Also I've asked twice now if you can check if the form is hidden via CSS, can you again confirm directly via the browser dev tools if the HTML tags or the form are present or not? If you do not now how, say so, do not ignore the question.

@TomJNowell A bit pedantic, but if I have to not state I believe the issue relates to the theme (because I have read as such on the internet), and get into conversations with people to then mention I am using a 3rd party theme later, so be it. Question edited.

I also amended the title, and the last sentence, communication isn't easy, what's obvious to you or me might mean something different to others, especially if they're not native speakers of the language. If your problem happens on all themes then it can't be a problem with Escapade

Whatever will get the problem solved, or almost anything, I am willing to do. I am not able to get access to the files for reasons that are beyond scope of this discussion. I presume it is hosted, but not sure. I have provided the info requested about what is in the HTML rendered on the page, and it's associated CSS, here - wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/397507/…

A passworded post that hasn't been unlocked would not show page contents, hidden or otherwise, it would show a password form. Once you've entered the password there would be no password form just content. Is it possible your password form is not showing because you typed the password and hit submit?

I have not ever had to the chance to enter the password on this brand new page.

can you confirm that this is true of all posts regardless of password? And can you contact the administrators of your server to confirm WordPress has not been modified? Either you're a victim of user error or there's a super important difference between your install and other installs that hasn't been mentioned. A passworded post would not show the posts content/markup unless it had been unlocked, or code had been added to interfere. Either that or the post has the word Protected: in the title and isn't actually password protected

@user66001 I would avoid insulting someone trying to help you in the comments, especially an elected community moderator. I've moved the comment thread to chat as it was flagged for being longer than 20 comments by the community bot

I was only trying to help and figure out what was happening, though really I should have directed you elsewhere, but who knows it might have been a broken filter

except you systematically eliminated all the things that could have caused it except the things you said you couldn't change or check

also, WP Stack exchange is not a support forum

and I'm not a tier 1 support staff/technician

everybody on stack exchange is just other people on the internet