Active only means it was saved, not that it ran
The rule remains in the list where you left it. Its switch reads Active, the panel is green, and the address still loads the old page. Nothing in the interface looks wrong, and that is because nothing there is. Active means the setting was accepted and is eligible to run; it says nothing about whether a single request ever arrived at it.
Matching is where most of an afternoon goes, and one quirk accounts for more of it than the rest together. A wildcard is compared against the whole address, the query string included, so a pattern that does not end open will skip any request bearing parameters. That is exactly what happens when you add something to bypass the browser cache: the cache-buster beats the pattern instead, the page loads normally, and you assume the rule is faulty. Operators differ in whether they care about capitals, which turns a path typed from a design document into a rule that matches nothing. Bulk lists behave the other way round and ignore parameters completely, but subpath and subdomain coverage stay off unless switched on, and a list that no rule enables does nothing at all.
Someone may have answered before your turn
Rules products operate in a fixed order, and a redirect ends evaluation the instant it fires. Two settings that match the same address are not a draw: the first one reached wins, and the product order decides which that is. Older forwarding settings yield to the modern products, which sounds like good news until the new pattern misses — then the old one activates, the visitor lands somewhere nobody configured this week, and the symptom stops resembling a redirect issue at all. Reading the order is quicker than changing either one.
The complete write-up, with every step and what each answer resolves: cloudflare forwarding url page rule
The sequence is what rescues the evening: did it land, did the template match it, did something respond earlier, and are you reading a simple request rather than a browser tab that may be showing you yesterday. Each question is resolved once, and the one that returns incorrect is the one to fix.