All "Messages visible to xxx" textfields set to display:none and aren't visible

For instance on the nodeactivity settings page all of the textfields to allow customization of messages are invisible (the node types show collapsed but uncollapsing them shows an empty box). Looks like the fields are rendering correctly but the activity_admin.js is coming behind and hiding them all. I don't know js well enough to really troubleshoot in any depth so I just commented out the js includes in activity_module_settings and activity_admin_settings to display the fields....