I am almost positive it is not the cable. I am not even confident there was a problem with the original cable. Again, today, I left the player syncing and it shut itself off completely--no LEDs in back or front. Unplugged from AC power for an hour, plugged back in. The "azure" light in back "sparks" for a split second and that's it. Looks like a completely dead player right now. Have contacted support. I was using HiJack v300 and 2.0b13 developer edition. No special HiJack customizations.