Okay, there is this guy on another forum who opened his gate Thursday morning (Feb 5th) and went to work. But then he had to go to the hospital for some reason, and his gate is still open. Weird thing is Nook hasn't been open since, and Able Sister's has the exact same stuff since Thursday. Anyone hear of this happening? If your gate is open Able's won't change her stock and Nook is not able to be open?
I've never heard of that, but that is really sad I don't see why they wouldn't open back up and re stock, and hopefully no one trashed that guy's town while his gate was open!
I think the game requires a reload after the 6 AM changes for the changes to occur. Similar to how the mail is supposed to show up at 9 AM and 5 PM, but if you just hang around outside your mailbox, nothing will happen. If you go inside and then outside again, the town will "refresh" and your mail will be in the mailbox. It's possible visitors aren't able to make the town "refresh" so the game is unable to make the changes it needs to, that would be why Nook's and Able Sisters can't change their stores.