The free memory is still very small, which is puzzling as the player's not running.

This is pretty normal, linux allocates memory for the filesystem-cache dynamically; as much as possible. If a request for a memory-page comes in, the filesystem-cache just reduces in size.

If the problem still only arises on the company-network, I think there is something wrong at a lower layer... You stated before that emplode was also unable to connect during a hang, is this still the case?

BTW, have you tried using the IP-address of the empeg instead of the hostname; perhaps DNS-problems...

Frank van Gestel