I eventually got this fixed the hard way. Caution anyone who tries this solution. You have to be very careful because you may not be able to get to manage the site again.
I had to remove both the Settings Block and the Navigation block and then reinstall it. Before removing, I opened another tab with the option for Notifications so that I could reinstall the block once detected. Once I removed the blocks from the DB and reinstalled them, everything started working again as it should.
Again, caution if you are going to try this solution as you might lock yourself out.