I can also confirm that ZDMC 17.6 installed with software 1.4.16 on my X10 (not sure about the X9) doesn't crash anymore when playing files over SMB from my NAS with external player. I, first updated the firmware from 1.4.12 to 1.4.16, uninstalled ZDMC 17.4, then reinstalled ZDMC 17.6, no "Unfortunately ZDMC has crashed" so far.
Ditto the above post for me, still not one crash in more than a week. I only use the external player in ZDMC/Kodi now as the internal player that comes with Kodi is buggy, it drops lots of frames and audio goes out of sync with high bitrate audio tracks like ATMOS.
I'm using firmware 1.4.20 on my X8 and I can confirm no more crashes running ZDMC external player when playing SMB files. But I just found out the external player still doesn't load Blu-ray menu. I think a version or two ago, it was able to load. One bug solved, another one returns
I find bluray menu is hit and miss. I’ve had zero success trying to open menus for movies with multiple streams to select from (Dolby Atmos test disc, TV series)