Quick reply...
Side note: I hit the "activate all tracks" button (as button mashing is my primary means of learning how things work), and then when i exited to the map all of the buttons were gone and i had to kill the program from the power switch as it was non-interactable. And since then the screen is only black when i load the program. Any suggestions on how to get the screen back and the program usable again without having to purge-reinstall?

Move file
/opt/modrana/data/options.bin
somewhere else, and start modrana.
All options reset, all problems go away.