The same thing has happened again: somehow a "next page" section break has become a "continuous" section break. In accordance with your above instructions, I used the workaround: insert ‘Next Page’ Section breaks both sides of the ‘Continuous’ Section break, then select all three breaks and delete them together. But whereas last time it worked beautifully, this time every time I try it, it ruins all the footers of the previous chapter, either turning them into the footers of the chapter previous to it, or following it, depending on various ways I tried implementing it.

I have been executing this in draft mode, and I tried deleting the three page breaks and only after that putting a new "next page" section break, but it didn't work. So then I tried adding a new "next page" section break following the three page breaks to be deleted, and only then deleting the three page breaks, but that didn't work either. I have been playing with this for over an hour now, trying all sorts of permutations and combinations for safely getting rid of the "continuous" section break, but nothing is working. No matter what I do, the footers in the previous chapter get ruined.