Ditto here, as I started the original thread thought I’d check in! I always suspected WD had turned something off they thought they didn’t need any more, and that was the cause - especially after I’d ruled out firmware and the number of responses pointed to something other than busted hardware.
Anyway, I just commented to my wife last night the WDTV doesn’t seem to crash any more, WD must’ve done something, and indeed - here we all are saying “FIXED!” 
Well, good. Seems I don’t have to junk my WDTV after all! And I’ll bookmark this solution for future reference - I can well see this happening in the future!
