im pretty sure its a compatibility thing, what if the theme your changing to doesnt have the same widget areas, since the widget areas are assigned by the theme
I said "a size limit" not "database size limit". Why is your html file so large? Can you try cutting it down to different sizes to find out what the limit is?
I just removed nodebb-theme-rocket and now the widgets are working. It seems like there was some kind of problem with that theme which screwed up the whole thing. Wierd.