Netflix has been rolling out an updated User Interface across devices. The most obvious is that the menu is across the top. I got this update on a FireTV and GoogleTV yesterday, and one of my Roku's got it today.
I quickly found a bug. When I closed and tried to restart Netflix, it would just go blank and then crash back to the Roku home screen. I even tried the typical uninstall/reboot/install. It would work the first time, but then crash on re-use.
After some experimenting, I found it was due to closing Netflix using the "Exit Netflix" menu entry. If you just hit the Home key to exit to the Roku home screen, Netflix will restart back up as normal.
Good catch and congrats on narrowing the problem down and providing a work around. Has this been reported this to Netflix?
My Roku has reverted back to the old Netflix UI. A FireTV and Google TV, which had the new UI, have also reverted back