There seems to be a pattern indeed. Now I looked more carefully at the sun-icon while rotating - and you had a good hunch there - the sun-arrow shows upwards when the sun suddenly stops.
Exactly like it did in the last video I posted here. I replicated the situation several times and it stays consistent. I need to press CTRL-Z to go back to be able to rotate once more (and then go back again, etc.).
Edit: In another project I cannot even start rotating the sun because it already got stuck and stepping back with CTRL-Z cannot be used because the rotation action may have been overwritten from memory by other actions I did after getting stuck. I somehow need to get rid of that North-Lock.
How should I proceed?