Originally posted by GunsForBucks:

Early access or not... I don't think the devs can work around server disconnects or other issues outside of the game.

That would depend on the reason for the disconnect (e.g. client crash, server crash, local server, online server etc) and how good/bad Valheim's netcode is.

If the OP disconnected then they shouldn't lose their items as they're not stored on the server once you disconnect. However if the player crashed and was still connected to the server then it's possible their 'ghost' died but since there was no client/server connection, the items just disappeared as they don't technically belong to any entity in the server.

I've experienced a similar phenomenon in OSRS where if you kill something you get the loot after a few seconds, but if you disconnect from the server before it drops the loot, then you won't see the loot even when you log back in.