Edited for my being a moron...

omendelovitz wrote:the only problem that I can forsee from my sync is that I remove the 31 character limit on filenames...

i think that IS the problem.
i have checked "force i-tunes style ...", "trim path ..." and also
"update database based on all track changes ..."
on the device configuration tab and i don't have any problems
with my ipod (well sometimes the album art isn't displayed correctly, but after a database update it's ok)

Sorry, I can't as I'm not familiar with the iPod. You could check out the Device Synchronization forum, the iPod tour and FAQ on the MediaMonkey homepage to find more information on the particular settings for the iPod sync.

can you elaborate? in particular, what settings could cause this problem? I've checked all my settings regularly, and the only problem that I can forsee from my sync is that I remove the 31 character limit on filenames...

Make sure the sync settings are set ok, check things like the file path limit and more in Tools > Options > Portable/Audio Device and selecting the iPod to be configured.

These issues did not crop up for me when using 969 and 971 (problems seem to start in 974+)

I sync my entire library to ipod using MM - almost all my files are mp3 and m4a.

viewing the DB and files via MM, everything seems ok. Trying to play the files on my ipod is something different;

Tracks are all located in the ipod database, but when trying to play them, ipod just skips over the song (tag info is displayed); in some cases, the song track end time is correct, in others, it is displayed as 0:00.

This error occurs regardless of audio format (i.e. equally to mp3 and m4a).

I will check the sync forum, but just wanted to point it out here as it seems to be a new problem.

windows XP; ipod 5g 60 gb Apple FW only, various bit rates audio encoding;

P.S. - I will re-install .969 and see if I can reproduce the sync issue. if it fails, I will re-install RC-2 and debug/send a log.