Hello,
Dusty clouds certainly seems like a good answer, maybe even a more regional one. Any object heavy enough to bend light passing by would also cause the star to "disappear" as well, rogue black holes are popular atm.
Steve
A nice article recently on a 10billion light year distant super nova that blew up 10 billion years ago. Turns out there was enough mass between the super nova and us to get the same image up to 30 years apart due to the light being warped by the galaxies in between.
https://hubblesite.org/contents/news...-2021-030.html