QUESTION:
What is NASA's current explanation for the "reset" cases that have been
experienced?

ANSWER from the Internet on August 25, 1997.
The following quote from a status report regarding the "reset" problem
can be found at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/marsnews/pf970717.html

Mars Pathfinder Mission Status
July 17, 1997
11 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time

Mars Pathfinder engineers reported a day of flawless operations of the
lander and Sojourner Rover on Mars with the end of the mission's 13th day on
Mars this morning, and also noted that they have found and are in the
process of fixing a software bug that had caused the landers computer to
reset itself four times in recent days.

"The resets on the lander computer were caused by a software task that was
unable to complete the task in the allotted time," said Flight Director
Brian Muirhead. "We found that the task was being cut short because it had
not been given high enough priority to run through to completion. Basically,
we just need to add one instruction to the computer software to raise the
priority of that task."

The problem was reproduced and isolated in testing at JPL. Further tests and
verification will be completed today and tomorrow, with radio transmission
of a software "patch" to change the lander's software scheduled for
Saturday, Muirhead said...

A list of additional Mars Pathfinder mission status reports can be found at
the following URL:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/marsnews/