I had your 2nd issue happen to me all day yesterday, and then I changed the channel on my router from 6 to 11, which fixed it instantly. Give that a shot.
As for the cracks on the remote, I have those to, and they're coming off the right side of the speaker. It's just a cosmetic flaw with molds, and I've seen it somewhere before on other hardware (GC controllers, maybe). Don't get too worked up about it, it's not really something that can be avoided.