I too still see this issue, happened yesterday after a couple of weeks of fun. But, unfortunately the 1.7 version of the bin complains with 1.7.1 hotfix. So can we please have a 1.7.1 hotfix version?
Just run MediaPortal with the option /avoidversioncheck and you're good to go.
You can edit your shortcut and change the target to:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\MediaPortal.exe" /avoidversionscheck