No, the player doesn't say anything and there are no console messages. The empeg still play fine when hooked up to my stereo - surely this wouldn't be the case if the playlist was screwed up?...

Not necessarily. If database it hosed, the player itself will rebuild it from playlists and tag files at startup; it's only that player cannot write the database to disk - that is reserved for emplode/emptool/jemplode. To check this, reboot the player (cycle its power), and see whether there is a message (on empeg screen, not serial port) 'rebuilding database' or something to this effect for several minutes after the boot sequence finishes and before the music starts.

Good luck!


Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green