We've been having some problems with CPU usage lately, and as a result, today, I had to disable Recent Status Updates.
This is, unfortunately, permanent for the time being. This isn't anyone's fault directly, but I think we would all agree, that we'd rather the forums be working, than not.
Until we can move to a better server package, with better CPU specs, this will remain disabled for the time being.
It's also possible that I will be disabling other things, such as Recent Blog Posts. We'll just have to monitor things and see.
Thank you for your understanding.