I've played more than a few albums since it started happening and I believe it does it on anything. also, i've played the same song twice, sometimes with success, sometimes with a failure

I just upgraded hijack to 417 to be on the safe side, and removed the line ;@EXEC_ONCE /usr/local/bin/emphatic from config.ini. now the letters "sr" appear after the [32/38] track listing - what does that mean?

also, i ran hyperterminal again and let it play till it crashed (this time induced by hitting the left button a few times) and there was nothing additional output.

what next?