Hello,
I found this thread by searching for "orange pi 1978" with Google because I have the same problem here with 2 identical Orange Pi Plus 2E systems.
One both systems I installed ARMBIAN 5.73 stable - 4.19.20-sunxi and the problem is reproducible but it takes around 2 weeks till it happens.
Both systems running in the same network and do exactly the same (the 2nd is a backup-system) but the problem does not occur on both system at the same time.
In the moment, were the problem occur you have limited access to the system. SSH does not work, shutdown or reboot does not work and today I tried to sync the the systemtime with the RTC but it does not work. RTC has the correct time and system date was 7th May 1978.
The only solution is to cut the power and connect it again. I use a WLAN-power-socket to do this remote.
Do you have any idea what I can try? I thought an external RTC modul could help and sync the time in case of the 1978-problem happens but today I learned the RTC is not the problem (sudo hwclock -r gives the right time) and it's not possible to set the date with sudo hwclock -s when it happens.
Thanks for your help!