I added a couple fields to an existing group but could not get them to appear in the admin. I then duplicated the group and was able to add the new fields. Since I left the rule for page template the same, both groups — orig and dupe — appeared in the admin. I then disabled the original group, but it still appeared. I then DELETED the original group, and it still appears! WPEngine. Cleared cache twice.
It sounds like the field group is loaded from a JSON file that is located somewhere other than the standard acf-json folder in the theme, this is done using the filter hook acf/settings/load_json.
