Not a waste of time at all. Good to know the culprit has been found and I hope you can move on without that plugin.

So – you have Simple:Press AND JetPack WP Stats active and the admin works OK?

It was being removed anyway, found a much better plugin 🙂

Yes, I have had no problems at all with JetPack WP Stats. I’ve noticed other have had issues, but none for me. 

Thanks for the confrmation. Appreciate it.