My guess would be that your database is hosed. Try following the instructions to dlete the database found in this FAQ and then resync with emplode.

Yes, that's what I figured. Curiously, I went through that db/tag/playlist delete routine once yesterday and again this AM, and, in each case, when I run Emplode after the fact my playlists are still there (not what i expected after deleting /drive0/var/playlists!.....hmmmm, if this is normal I guess that means that the DBs/playlists are rebuilt from FIDs?)

(the fact that /drive1/var/* weren't found I chalked up to this player not having enough music to fill more than the 1st drive....)

You might also want to try JEmplode at this point (possibly after deleting the database again), as I seem to remember that it handles unknown file types a little better than emplode (but I might not be remembering correctly on this one).

Now that I hadn't considered....and I do have some "unknown" OGG files on the player now that v2 player/Emplode would not recognize...

Caveat lector: I've not done the database delete thing, and I don't quite remember if it has effects beyond simply cleaning out the database to be rebuilt. I don't think it does, but I could well be wrong.

Well, I'm way beyond caveats now! Anything short of a builder install I would consider a win. Hmmm, I may pop a spare laptop drive in this unit and run builder just to make sure I don't have a coincidental hardware problem. As it stands now, the symptoms are that the player starts normally, and menus may operate normally for a bit, but the player and display lock up after 1 song or any attempt to change the song/playlist. Certainly sounds like a DB problem.

Oh, the Pollyanna side of this? VMWare rocks. I used the "official" Empeg upgrade tool and was able to use that and Hyperterm under VMWare -- both were talking to "COM3" on a Comtrol Rocketport 8Si IP terminal server. The Comtrol Windows drivers seem to work just swell with the VMWare virtual IP.

(This is really good news as I have a bunch of infrequently used Windows utilities such as for Icom+Kenwood radio programming that require a COM port but which I don't want to reboot for)