OK, here's the current situation.

We've reproduced the problem on the specific player three times. Unfortunately, all three times have been when there wasn't much debugging code in the kernel to fathom out what broke :-(

We have reproduced it without any notable stray IR so this is not (the only) cause of the problem.

My current belief is that the failure has something to do with the unit being left powered but switched "off" via the menu or top button for a while. I have reproduced it within a couple of minutes when the unit has been left powered overnight but never right after a hard reboot. This makes investigating the problem a slow process since debugging generally involves putting a new kernel on which requires a power cycle :-(

If anyone feels like trying top reproduce it I suggest they try doing so immediately after a cold boot and report results.

--
Mike Crowe
I may not be speaking on behalf of empeg above :-)