Creating containers under forum module problem

Hello,

I've been fine-tuning a couple of things on a site I've been working on, and today the forum module completely died on me. It's quite likely it was something I did while I was fiddling around with other things, but I've tried to go back to the way I had it and no luck.

What it's doing:
When I try to create a container (or forum) under Forums (Administer>Content Management>Forums) it allows me to do either, and even confirms that the newly created container or forum was created successfully, but then under list nothing appears and under the main Forums link (site.com/forum or site.com?q=forum) it says "No forums defined". Also interesting, I've checked the content types for forum topic, container, and category and none of them say to promote to the front page .. but if I look on my front page, the new container/forum I just created is there. Just the title, no additional information, and editing it gives me no additional options. When I view the newly created content from the content page, the content type is blank.

What I've tried:
Administer>Menus>Forums>Reset
Unchecking and then later rechecking the forum module checkbox.
Many other things I can't remember. (Obviously I don't really know what I'm doing).

...Also, I am using the category module which I understand in some ways affects the forum module (I don't really know how). I also at one point tried to assign a url alias to "forum", changing it to something else. I don't know if it stopped working then, or before then, but my forums were definitely working prior to today. I deleted the url alias and no change.

Obviously I'm lost, and I would really appreciate any help or suggestions you have.

Thanks a lot.