Yes, payout problems are related, its calculated on the webserver. Everything will be fixed today.
bitcoind hangups are documented and last bitcoind version already fix that. Unfortunately I have many custom patches in bitcoind, so update is not so easy - I need to test it well.
I'm developing a bitcoin website too, and these bitcoind hangups happen with an annoying frequency. Do you know where can I get the latest bitcoind version?
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
But you must build it from sources.