Using Windows Media Player to Alter ID3 Tags on Podcast MP3s May Cause Them Not to Play

Regarding your item #2, Egadfly, I just wanted to share what I finally figured out after a day's worth of hassles trying to get MP3 podcasts of NPR programs to play on my Sansa Express.  The problem was that while the podcast MP3 files would appear on the Sansa Express menus and screens, no matter what kind of selecting and button pushing I tried, they simply would not play.

It turns out that the play failure was happening because before putting the MP3s onto the Sansa Express, I had first used Windows Media Player 10 to edit the files' ID3 tags so that I could see more information about the subject of each program.  Apparently, whatever Windows Media Player 10 did to the MP3 files when saving the altered ID3 tags caused the Sansa Express to consider the files corrupted and unplayable.  (The altered files still played fine on Windows Media Player on the PC, however.) The problem was solved when I simply downloaded the podcasts and copied them directly to the Sansa Express without any editing of the ID3 tags.  Then the Sansa Express played the podcasts just fine.

So my tip for everyone is beware of using Windows Media Player for any kind of editing of ID3 tags.  Don't do it if you want to ensure that your MP3 podcasts will be playable by anything other that the Windows Media Player!!!