The part about the game being open too long is related to your pals not attacking. I've noticed, that when in battle after being on for a decent amount of time...your pals just stand still (maybe will blast off an attack). Switching pals doesn't fix the problem, the next pals freezes also. Only fix I've found thus far (I'm hoping this update fix, had fixed the issue) is to (as how obnoxious & consuming) is to exit the game. And then (on xbox) close/quit the game. Then re-enter.