I've used KStars for many years, and I have never seen this issue. What am I missing?
I set a target and slew to it. It is displayed in the upper right corner.
I then plate solve it and slew to it - which is nailed down within a few arc seconds. Again - just as I always do.




But tonight - for the first time - I noticed that when I set the mount to auto flip at the meridian - it says NO target set.
What's going on?

Hm, weird. Logs?

you cannot set a target for a meridian flip because it is a physical phenomenon that occurs when a telescope's mount needs to reposition itself as the object being observed crosses the meridian line in the sky. The meridian line is an imaginary line that runs from north to south through the zenith (the point directly overhead) and marks the boundary between the eastern and western halves of the sky.
When a telescope's mount is tracking an object and it crosses the meridian, the mount needs to flip its orientation to continue tracking the object on the other side of the meridian. This is necessary because the telescope's view is obstructed by the mount itself as the object passes through the meridian.
The timing of the meridian flip depends on the position of the object being observed and the latitude of the observer. It cannot be predicted or controlled by setting a target. However, some telescope control software can automatically initiate a meridian flip when needed based on the telescope's position and the observer's latitude. upsers portal

Carl, I think Peter knows this
The problem seems that internally the Mount module didn't recognize slewing to a certain position as a target - for whatever reason. That's why I asked for the logs
Cheers
Wolfgang

I've been an astrophotographer since 1980. I know what a meridian flip is. Yes, it certainly can be predicted once EKOS has a target set.

The issue, s Wolfgang mentioned, is that EKOS was not scheduling the flip as usual. Normally, after slewing to a target, EKOS would tell me when the flip would occur. If the mount was already pointing past the meridian, it would STILL indicate that a flip was scheduled to occur in around 12 hours. But for some strange reason EKOS did not show this scheduled time -= which was a new development.

Anyway, I rebooted and then it started working again as it should.