"Occassionally, when switching on the kitchen lights, the lights will come on for a moment, then the whole circuit (including exterior and puck lights) goes dead. The breaker does NOT trip, but if the breaker is reset, the lights will come back on. Sometimes they will blink again and go out, other times the lights will come on as normal and stay on. "
"It was the freaking neutral. Opened the panel, traced the hot down from the breaker- started tracing the neutral up and immediately heard it sizzle. It wasn't just loose, I'd never even given the screw the first turn."
Now that you found it and corrected it, I can easily see that the vibration from resetting the breaker would rattle things just enough to make the neutral connection connect again for a while. So it's very likely that you solved this mystery. Things like this are what troubleshooting is about...
