[MINImeat]

Fortunately, I located a post describing a white, plastic sliding mechanism at the top/right of the latch that can be moved to the left to reset the latch and it worked like a charm to make my boot latch again. A piece of plastic also pops out of the right side and pushing it back in also resets the latch.
Unfortunately, I lubricated the mechanism and excercised it several times and found that it still refuses to latch intermittently, so I've put a screwdriver in the boot and will remove the right plastic plug in the cover above the latch to push in the white piece of plastic when the latch stops catching.
I wish I knew exactly what's malfunctioning internally and how I could correct it.