Are you using the Ion drum kits or any other kind of wired peripheral? I heard they can build up static electricity and make the internal circuits start "pressing" the navigation buttons. Beyond that, I'm not sure.

" Are you using the Ion drum kits or any other kind of wired peripheral? I heard they can build up static electricity and make the internal circuits start "pressing" the navigation buttons. Beyond that, I'm not sure. "

Sounds like a real annoying thing to happen. Um, I don't know much about PS3 UI and such. Maybe try clearing up space on your HDD? Is it actually exiting the game itself or just pausing?

" Playing ..
Screen goes black ..
TV switching from 720p to 1080p..
XMB..
Me Crying.  "

 
  @copycatzen: 
Do a quick search for Rock Band 3 crash to XMB on google, and you'll see that this has been an issue since the game released.  I know that many were hoping that the 1.03 patch would fix it, but if anything it seems to have made it more common for some users.  
 
 In my case, I had it only happen once between launch and the patch, but it has happened 3 or 4 times since the patch.    Some users have never experienced the issue, and for some it has been much more frequent than my experience.  I don't even know if Harmonix has really made much progress in what causes it to occur as they haven't really commented about it in the XMB crash thread at Rockband.com  

@JJWeatherman said:

Maybe the PS3 is set up to exit out to the XMB if the video resolution switches.

I don't know about that, is it even possible? 
I think the change of resolution is just 'cause the game runs in 720p but the default for my PS3 is 1080p, so it switches back when the game exits.

I have a Sony receiver using HDMI. 
 
@Jasonofindy:     
Thanks for the info, I'll check it out