I changed my preferences to 20 threads per page instead of 50. I thought I had already changed that, but I guess not. In any event, my sidebar has reappeared, but all of FR is loading slowly for me. I hope it’s not about to go down again. In my experience, this is usually what happens right before it goes down.
But agree, it is a familiar situation and when it went totally down last time ---it was gone here as well for a long, long, long time. Sigh. If found early enough, perhaps a repeat of 'last time' will not be seen.