Sorry, but I can be a bit thick with all this.

If I include ;@DC with emphatic then that means emphatic will only work in the car dock. As I have a docking station this means that if I want to synch I'll have to do it out of the dock (like I currently have to do upgrades) OR fool the player into thinking it is on AC power by sticking something (safe) in the power socket OR close down emphatic before I synch.

[Edit] That was a question BTW. Re-reading made it look like I was telling you something you already know.

I used to have to do the last option every time I wanted to synch but it is so rare these days that I generally forget, have to wait for the error message as a reminder, close emphatic and then synch properly.