Why is it that when you finally breakdown and ask for help you find the answer like 5 minutes later? Its like looking for the car keys!! I can't seem to delete my post so I'll post the answer.
Evidently I clicked the drop down under the left pan to group by Nexus IDs. Not sure how in the heck those 24 would be considered to have the same Nexus ID so I'll be looking into that but things are back to normal now that I selected No Groups instead. The 256th mod was a red herring...
Makkli's post in Nonsensical "subfolders" in MO left pane was marked as the answer