I did not have any problem with Directory Opus for all the years I have used the product, except with the last update (11.17). It will now pause or hang temporarily during an operation, and I will have to wait until the product recovers to continue. In the upper left-hand corner, it will say, "Directory Opus (not responding)." What could be causing such behavior? There is nothing new on my computer which would produce such a thing; and I do not have any issues with any other program. 
Which version were you using previously?
Do you see this even if you open a window for a completely empty folder?
The "not responding" message appears in the titlebar after doing USB transfers to my Android Tablet (Samsung Note 8). It will hang, then release, then hang again, then release, etc. until it finishes it's operation (usually copying files to Tablet). If I use FTP protocol to transfer files to the Tablet, it has no problem. There is something with the USB port transfers. 
Toggling Preferences / Miscellaneous / Advanced: mtp_enable can help sometimes with Samsung devices. Updating the device/firmware can as well, if updates are available (varies greatly by model, of course).
It doesn't always help though, and the MTP stacks on both the Windows and Android side are not the most solid or mature pieces of software. (Problems also manifest in Explorer in some situations.) A big part of the problem is the protocol is single-threaded and can even lock up if two threads or two programs request files at the same time.
Using FTP or SFTP avoids all the problems with MTP, so that is a good alternative of course.
The MTP setting was already enabled and set to TRUE. But I did not have any issue with the USB file management in previous versions, such as version 10. I cannot use FTP transferring files to the memory portion of the Tablet; it must be USB. I can only use FTP on the extended memory card portion of the Tablet.
Try turning the setting off.
When the MTP setting is off (set to false), your program will not allow a USB transfer at all. So I had to turn it back on and put up with the hanging. Since previous versions did not do this, I suspect a bug.
I've had this problem with Opus and my (and my wifes) Samsung Galaxy S4 phones since getting the phones a few years ago. It's never worked well, across multiple Opus and Android releases. So for me... it's nothing new or specific to v11.17.
Also kinda stinks that hitting F5 to refresh causes Opus to re-position to the root of the phone.
FWIW, I usually see it when I've been copying files TO the phone, then Opus will sometimes hang. I might get a device removal ding sound, but either way I usually have to disconnect and reconnect the phone to get things settled.
So something about whatever is going on during the copy causes a lock up like Leo is saying with the goofy MTP interface, and then causes a device disconnect (is there a timeout maybe in MTP)? 
Think any of the buffer setting might make a difference? Would something like process monitor help track down multiple threads to the device that could cause the lock up?
I've otherwise used the same cable as I'm using to connect the phone to laptop(s) with other devices, and those connections are fine as regular USB drives. And then a collection of over a dozen other USB external and flash drives and cables and move lots of data without issue. When I'm copying to the phones they're undisturbed on a flat surface and should be happy.
FWIW I have had many, many hangs with 11.17 - thought/assumed it was just my setup. My hangs always occur when transferring files to/from my various Android devices. (Have to C+A+D to close DOpus.)
Rgds
Robin
Toggling Preferences / Miscellaneous / Advanced: mtp_enable is our advice if you are having hangs when transferring to/from Android. (This switches between Opus talking to the Windows MTP stack directly, and Opus talking to it indirectly by delegating the view of MTP folders to the Windows shell.)
Switching to FTP or SFTP if you still have problems is our other advice. (Personally, I do this anyway as I find it more convenient to send things over wifi. OTOH, MTP and a USB cable can be faster for doing huge files, if in a hurry.)
Both the Windows and Android MTP stacks are not particularly stable or well-written, and some Samsung firmware versions seem particularly prone to hanging. It's largely outside of our control (although we have found ways to improve things in some cases by avoiding sequences of operations that make MTP fall over). It also affects Explorer sometimes, although less so, probably because the Windows side of things is designed & tested around Explorer's quirks rather than any other program's. Restarting the Windows and/or Android device is sometimes needed to get things working again.
I'm going to lock the thread so that this summary & suggestions remains easy to find at the end when searching, and since there is nothing more to say really. (If anyone does have information to add which we can act upon, starting a new thread for it is fine.)