I just got this message from Haloscan

Your comments are very safe and we still have them. However the database
server has been switched out with a backup temporarily as we are
currently working on the server. When it’s switched back to the main one, all
comments should be available again.

Thanks for your patience.
—
-Jeevan

I hope this will work. Given the trouble the Haloscan guys are having, I don’t want to try to maintain a comments facility on the basis of my own coding skills.