OK. Here's the deal:

1) v2.01 firmware did nothing different

2) Rebuilding the database did nothing different

3) I created brand new playlists in jemplode and dropped a known non unicode tagged MP3. No dice.

4) Finally I created the full directory structure on my PC from the Language playlist down (i.e. Language->Chinese->chinesepod.com->A Novice) and it works.

So it would seem that when creating playlists in jemplode manually it's not doing it properly. I'm surprised if that's the case - I'm sure others would have done this. I probably have only ever created the root playlist which seems to work (i.e. the "Languages" one in this case).

When dropping a directory in to jemplode to create playlists it fills in fields like Artist and Album with "Various" eventhough you don't ever actually see them in normal operation. However this only happens if there is an MP3 in the directory. If you drop an empty directory structure it leaves the fields blank.

When creating a manual playlist in jemplode the only field filled in is Title (unless the user manually enters the fields).

Without these fields filled in the firmware doesn't seem to show them. I haven't got as far as figuring out which fields are actually required.

Because the hijack stuff and jemplode don't care about the blanks they work fine and they just follow the fids manually. The firmware doesn't like it though.

Sound familiar to anyone? I'm really surprised this hasn't been found before.