I have been using sandisk products for years with windows media player with no problems. I just bought a clip because I wanted something to stay on me when I work out and am having serious issues. I had no problem just putting straight albums on the device but when I tried to sync all my playlists from windows media player I get this error:
Windows Media Player cannot access the file. The file might be in use, you might not have access to the computer where the file is stored, or your proxy settings might not be correct.
And when I tried to sync the playlists straight from the sandisk screen that comes up when you plug it in I get this error:
Unable to save changes to your sync settings. Try saving changes again. If this still doesn’t work, try disconnecting and then disconnecting and then reconnecting your device.
I am running windows 7 and trying to put the playlists on an external memory card I have in my player. I do not know if it is windows media player, windows 7 or the actual device. Help! I am willing to use another media player, but only if I can transfer my playlists from windows media player to it because it would take me days to recreate ALL my playlists. 
Win7 has added security annoyances. Make sure you’re logged as administrator. You may also have to get WMP to authorize the player and slot to prove you’re not a music pirate.
I am decidedly not a Windows Media Player user but my guess is that the problem arises because you are trying to put the playlists on the external card instead of the internal memory. And I remember WMP being exceedingly distrustful of external memory.
Have you done a precisely similar setup–WMP to playlists on external card?–before moving to Win7? My guess–only a guess–is that you have to put the playlists themselves into the internal memory. They’re small text files so they won’t take a lot of room.
If they are .m3u playlists, other music-library programs also handle them: Media Monkey and Winamp.
http://www.mediamonkey.com/
http://www.winamp.com
Try them if WMP stays frustrating. Look in their help files for dealing with the external card.
Both of them want you to get paid versions to rip to .mp3 but there is a workaround for Media Monkey–you have to replace its original mp3 encoder, which times out after 30 days, with the free LAME.
http://www.mediamonkey.com/support/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=23
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq_i18n?s=install&i=lame-mp3
Thanks for getting back to me!
I kind of did a trouble shoot and figured it was the external card and got my playlists onto the internal memory. I was very happy for about a day. The next time I turned on my device none of my playlists showed up, but the songs are still on the device. Any suggestions for that?
Maybe someone who knows more about playlists can help you…but connect the device and search it with your computer. See if you can find .m3u or .pla files, which are playlists. You may have to get Windows to show the file extensions.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/show-hide-file-name-extensions#show-hide-file-name-extensions=windows-7
The songs are separate from the playlists. The playlist is just a list of filenames and locations.
