Winamp's iPod Plugin Sucks, says an angry headline on the slolane blog.

It goes on, "If you use Winamp's ipod plugin, do not, I repeat, DO NOT upgrade to the latest version of Winamp. If you have the ml_ipod plugin installed it will screw up your ipod beyond belief. This is a known issue and Winamp hasn't yet bothered to put any notices or warnings up about it. It screwed up my ipod so bad that even iTunes wouldn't take it back. Reverting to a previous version of Winamp didn't help at all, and my ipod and everything on it had to be completely reformatted with another computer."

And over on, Yup, the Winamp site, "Please do yourself a favor and backup the /iTunes/ folder that holds your iTunesDB files before trying out 5.2," posts Latkey. "Personally I'm going to stick with 5.13 and ml_iPod for a while."

Back to slolane, " I didn't post the story on Digg to start an iTunes vs. Winamp debate (though I predicted it would probably go there, and I wasn't disappointed). I posted it because I'm mad--mad that I lost 18 GB of songs because of the plugin problem. ('Lost,' meaning I'll have to restore using my backup. I did lose some music permanently, though fortunately not all thanks to my own paranoia.) And I don't really fault the plugin author, but I do fault Winamp for NOT POSTING A WARNING on their plugins page about the problem when it came up. A few threads about it here and there (threads that are no longer sticky, btw) doesn't count. There are enough Winamp and ipod fans out there that it should have been a priority.

"Some people are saying they didn't experience this problem with the new Winamp. All I can say is, hey, good for you. Others have not been so lucky. I surely would have avoided it if I had known.

"As far as iTunes, well, what can I say? You either love it or hate it. There's really no in between, it seems. I happen to hate it. I agree with all the others who have said they disliked the way it 'gets in your face,' hogs system resources, and decides how to organize things for you. I like things quick and simple, which is Winamp. You are free to disagree (and obviously many do). I am no AOL fan either.

"As far as the fix that was mentioned in the Digg comments...I haven't had a chance to try it yet, so I can't really say anything about it one way or another. Martin wrote a tutorial on how to ' use Winamp 5.2 and iPod together without problems here."

Also See:
slolane blog - Winamp's iPod Plugin Sucks, March 18, 2006
Winamp site - ml_iPod users be careful with 5.2!!