Why on ipad, OS 26, in messages, emojis no longer come up predictively?

Why on ipad, OS 26, in messages, emojis no longer come up predictively? When I used to type in heart a heart emoji would come up, I could tap on it and it would be added to my text. Now the only way I can get an emoji is by pressing Control+Command+Space bar, then an emoji menu comes up. I can type the search bar and then choose the emoji.

I have an iPad Pro 13”, ipad OS 26

The emoji and English (US) keyboards are turned on. Predictive text is also turned on.

I deleted the emoji keyboard, forced restart the ipad and then added back the emoji keyboard - that did nothing and I tried that 3 times.

I turned off predictive text, forced restart the ipad and then turned it back on and still nothing.

Predictive text works fine on my iphone, but not my ipad.