Elder is stuck in the atlas.. help?

I'm looking for advise.

My atlas is 100% discovered. The elder influence started growing in top-right yellow map region and began spreading to the top-right tier 11-12 (red) maps. When Pit, Villa, and Factory (3 red maps) had elder influence, suddenly Pit & Factory had his guardians while Villa contained the elder.

The problem is that elder has 4 guardians which must be defeated before he can be fought. As the elder influence continued to spread to encompass entire top-right region of red maps, the other 2 guardians never appeared. I killed the only 2 guardians that did spawn, but that's not enough to make the elder spawn.

Since the other guardians are not spawning, how to I reset the elder? His control of the top-right section of the red maps doesn't break. If I clear one map to get shaper influence, 1-2 maps later elder takes over again.

I really want to finish The Memory Eater quest :-/

Screenshot would help.
If you actually only had 2 guardians spawn instead of 4 it's a bug

Thank you. I double checked and discovered that the other guardians did spawn, but they were in shaped yellow maps! After clearing them, the elder finally appeared in Villa.

:D

:D

ᗡ:

I really think that this post needs some attention since there is nothing to indicate that shaped maps can be targeted. It was by circumstance that due to Nubatack I came across a normal "shaped" map on the atlas that had a guardian on it.
Also, you don't have to run the shaped version of it to get the guardian battle. A normal copy works fine!
Confusing? Yes. Rewarding? https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Impresence_(Chaos) Yes.

Because a particular guardian has the same indicator that a shaped map does, so the icon on the map for a yellow shaped map occupied by a guardian is indistinguishable from a shaped white map. They both have the thick border on the atlas.

For me, the difference in the look of the map on the atlas was so faint that I couldn't tell without help.

Edit: One guardian was yellow-orange color, just like a shaped map outline.