Survival worlds not loading when i enter/exit the nether

I'm playing in a survival world in 1.17, and when i make my nether portal to get to the nether everything is fine. But when i step through the portal, all i see on the other side is a void. I exited and then re-entered the world which fixed the nether, but when I went through the portal again to  get back to the overworld, the chunks wouldn't load and i could fall off into the void.