All better now. Thanks for all the help. For those interested, the fix:
a) Boot player, repeatedly press ctrl-c until dropping to a shell prompt. (Caught the unit prior to the player starting).
b) Followed Hugo's dd suggestion for zeroing out the playlist and restarting the player.
c) Noted that everything worked again. Yay!
d) Started Emplode to delete the offending track - doublechecked some options, hit sync, walked away for a smoke...
e) Come back to find "Sync failed" message, error code 0xFFFFFFFFFF......
f) Fume.
g) Re-upgrade, loading developer 1.03 image.
h) Sweat profusely whilst using empeg to delete offending song and resync.
i) Smile and order tuner as Empeg now restored to full functionality.

Thanks again to all who posted, and my humble apologies to David Moss @ Empeg support whom I doubted publicly. ;-)


Dan Gentry
Empeg Mk II, 12GB Blue, #106
[email protected]