Hmmm, your /empeg/var directory doesn't appear to exist:

0xffffffec is -20, which is ENOTDIR. This is returned from 'CheckDatabaseAvailability'. Normally, this function would either return zero (for OK) or ENOENT (for missing files). I don't think it handles ENOTDIR properly.

Does the player itself work? Could you get serial traces (using Hyperterminal or similar) of the startup and of the synchronisation? Obviously, you won't be able to use serial to do the sync at this stage.

If you've got a developer image installed and you feel fairly confident at a command prompt, try to see if there's any files in the /empeg/var directory.