.zfs folder's missing, but snapshots are still there and mountable (inode trouble?)

$ sudo zfs list -t snapshot | grep childDataset3

a whole bunch are listed as expected (e.g. pool/dataset/childDataset3@today)

$ ls /pool/dataset/childDataset3/.zfs
ls: cannot access '/pool/dataset/childDataset3/.zfs': No such file or directory

I have other child datasets, and I can see the snapshot dir inside .zfs for them; and, I can even mount a snapshot from the above list from the one troublesome dataset (so they exist, just not as a nice list in a normal spot that users can dip into):

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/tempShadow
$ sudo mount -t zfs pool/dataset/childDataset3@today /mnt/tempShadow

i.e. I can browse one snapshot of files this way; also noteworthy, when I run the disk filesystems command with show inodes, all of the working datasets and child datasets show up EXCEPT for the one I'm having trouble with (what I'm calling "childDataset3"):

$ df -i

pool                               232594013966       9 232594013957    1% /pool
pool/dataset                       232600679652 6665695 232594013957    1% /pool/dataset
pool/dataset/childDataset1         232596006126 1992169 232594013957    1% /pool/dataset/childDataset1
pool/dataset/childDataset2         232594839509  825552 232594013957    1% /pool/dataset/childDataset2
pool/dataset/childDataset4         230211379723 3040916 230208338807    1% /pool/dataset/childDataset4

so is there a way to re-create the child dataset's inode? (forgive me if I'm totally saying that wrong)

using zfs version 0.7.12-2+deb10u2 if that matters

my backup solution is to switch users to the replicated dataset (on another server), and then destroy this dataset, then send a snapshot back (but I want to avoid this, because 32TB doesn't just pop over)

The .zfs directory is special: try to first chdir into it and then listing it.

In other words: cd /pool/dataset/childDataset3/.zfs/ ; ls

since it doesn't seem like anyone has an answer (or they do, but just not finding my post), I'll answer my question:

note that albeit new snapshots are being made on this glitched child dataset, and I can at least mount those snapshots (albeit can't browse .zfs/snapshot), when I look through said mount, I now see that new files are not there, and the snapshots are taking up 0B of space

SOLUTION: create a new child dataset, copy the data over (can't use zfs send/recv, so using rsync), destroy the old dataset, rename the new dataset:

sudo zfs create pool/dataset/childDataset3-new
rsync -auAXv --delete /pool/dataset/childDataset3/ /pool/dataset/childDataset3-new/ > logs.txt &
# wait a couple weeks (I'm copying 40TB); re-run the rsync command
sudo zfs destroy -r pool/dataset/childDataset3
sudo zfs rename pool/dataset/childDataset3-new pool/dataset/childDataset3