Stick in
[hijack]
suppress_notify=1
and it will probably clear up any such issues.

I did this before leaving on vacation a week ago. Although "Restore DC/Car Visuals" has been working reliably, I did just once get the screen-locked-up-with-blank-track-info bug (the one reported at the top of this thread) during my trip.

Anyone have confirmation of whether this main bug has happened without hijack or not?

And thanks to those who verified that suppress_notify and car_rate helped to make it work reliably.