Well, it should be working now.
The server went down for reasons unknown. It was not related to our end of the deal--just the server provider. However, when they got the server back up, then some of the stuff here was messed up and the database had to be rebuilt. I don't understand why this happens as they are supposed to have back-ups and be able to restore. It may be the changing nature of the forum, whereas their backups are maybe once a day. Fortunately, with the forum we have our own back-ups.
The upshot is I will simply have to apologize to everyone. I had to log myself back in and everyone else will probably have to, also. But once you are logged in, all of your settings should (hopefully) remain intact and we can move on.