2) Screen blanker. When I leave the screen blanker on it blanks like it should but then after a while it goes into standby. It seems random. The stanby timer is off; I can't figure out why it does this. Is it meant to do this?

This is also a feature. From Hijack FAQ:

In reply to:

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standby_minutes=30

Number of minutes to automatically stop the player and put unit in standby after the screen blanker fires (default shown). When playlist completes, screen blanker begins countdown regardless of screen activity, then it triggers standby counter.

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If you want it to stop shutting down, either increase timeout or increase blanker sensitivity so that is shows the screen here and there.