Problems with gadgetbridge

I'm wondering if all of these things are connected and maybe when a notification is sent to the watch it breaks its communication with Gadgetbridge.

This is likely related. What apps/clock to you have installed? You can get a list from the 'More...' tab of the app loader. Do you think you could connect with the Web IDE and then paste this code in the left-hand side:

GB({"t":"notify","id":2,"src":"Twitter",­"title":"Tweet!","body":"testing..."})

It should cause a notification to appear - maybe it will show up some log messages/errors that might help you?