I have just recently updated to B8, and I am seeing weirdness with the way the playlists play back after a download.

I currently RIP from CD using Audio Catalyst. This creates the MP3s in a directory on disk, in creation order; in Win Exploder, I can sort on time of creation. Following advice read in one of the discussion groups, I currently select the youngest (inevitably the first) member track of the album, then use CNTRL-A to select the rest of the tracks in the album. These are copied into a new playlist in emplode. The displayed track order, and position number at this point is correct and matches the album play order, the RIP order, and the order displayed by Exploder when sorted by creation date/time.

Following a successful sync, the playlist reads back showing the playlist order I set up, still matching the play order of the album.

I go out to the car, and (inevitably) the play order of the tracks comes up consistently different to that specified and read back after the sync.

Now before you all pile in with is shuffle mode turned on?, no it very definitely isn't, before or after the selection of the playlist.

When I take the unit back in and connect up, I get the playlist back from the unit in the correct order, as I expected it to play. I have checked the properties for both the playlist itself and it's parent, and neither are set to loop or to be permanently random.

This has now happened on each set of tracks I have downloaded since the update, and it is consistent. I have not yet checked whether the "scramble order" is consistent putting last track first, or some such, which I will look at next.

Anyone else seeing this, or have I just stepped sideways into an alternative universe?

...proud to have one of the first Mark I units

OK, OK, so I was lying, what a scumbag. When I download the playlists to check the order, they are actually downloaded in the apparently modified order they play back in.

And guess what - it seems consistent in the way it scrambles them, but it is not consistent in which lists it chooses to scramble. Out of three downloads, it scrambled 3 (this weekend), on Monday 2, and yesterday evening none.

What it does is as follows:

I select the "youngest member" (first ripped) in Exploder, then ctrl A to get the rest, copy to the new empeg playlist, it appears again in the correct order, I do a sync, and instead of playlist order 1,2,3,4,5....10, I get back (consistently, when it happens) 3,2,1,4,5....10!!

Dionysus, you are truly a man of few words...

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"