Apologies. I have been very under the weather for several weeks. Still recovering.
I think I isolated the way to fix the the CMS, but I held off for fear of making mistakes through the fog of flu and doing damage instead of fixing.
I really need my test server, restore a copy of the forum and test the solution before doing it on the forum-live.
My test server PSU went phut! again a few weeks ago during the storms over the holidays. I don't have a spare PSU at the moment.
Through some DR planning, I do have a standby box for the test server.
I'll pull them apart in the next few days, swap the primary drive over and see if I can get a test server back online.