I know this has been asked before. There are many questions where the solution is to use the dblfloatfix package. However, the MWE below creates a document where the figure is on the bottom of page 2. All the solutions I find are resolved by including the package and using [!b], perhaps something has been updated since those solutions were made.
See for example this solution: Placing a figure in the bottom of a page spanning the two columns of an IEEE document Using the same method no longer works, the figure appears at the bottom of the second page.
Here is my MWE. I am on Arch Linux with the latest version of everything (I updated before creating the question just in case).
\documentclass[twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage{dblfloatfix}
\usepackage[demo]{graphicx}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\begin{figure}[!b]
\includegraphics[width = \textwidth]{MyFigure}
\caption{Hoping for this to appear at the bottom of the first page}
\end{figure}
\lipsum
\lipsum
\end{document}
nidanfloataccomplishes the task. I wouldn't mind hearing some insight into how thenidanfloatanddblfloatfixpackages operate differently though. – Will Feb 16 '22 at 02:48