New comments appear but without content

Started a few weeks ago. At first I just thought someone forgot to type their message before clicking the “Post Comment” button. Their comment appears in the list. But only their user name. Content is blank. Even when I try to view/edit their comment.

I tested this for myself and the same exact thing happens. Nothing wrong with comments being created and old comments appear with all of their original content. But new comments get created and displayed without any content.

I have no clue where to even begin looking for the cause. I have a staging site which was copied from the main site several months ago and comments are working fine there. But when I try updating plugins to see which one is causing the issue I run into a problem while entering new comments: “Denied for too many attempts”…. “Please try visiting at a later time.”

Which means the only method I have for troubleshooting this issue is being blocked by some stupid setting which I have not been able to locate.

Thanks for taking the time to review my issue and I appreciate any suggestions as to how I can get things back up and running.

The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]