I give up. I ended up trying it from another computer. I got the synch going, but when it was halfway done, it slowed to a crawl. I then remembered the advice to run the latest 11.1 version, and checked the version. I'd assumed that since I'd just done a fresh download, I had the latest - but no, I was still on 11.0. So, I stopped the synch and downloaded 11.1.195, and restarted it.
First problem - even though I'd copied over 9000 files to the IPod, when I restarted the synch, it didn't recognize that half of the songs in my library were already there, so it said that it didn't have enough space. So, I re-initialized the IPod from MC, and it still said it didn't have enough space. So, I went into the IPod updator and did a "refresh" from there, and then restarted the synch from MC.
Second problem - it went for about an hour, and then MC crashed with a GPF.
Doesn't anyone else have these problems? I'm not doing anything fancy. My computer is totally fresh - my hard drive had died last week, so I've had to re-install everything. The IPod is brand new, and has never been touched by ITunes.
I am using a 60 gig IPod, and am trying to synch about 55 gig of music to it. That's probably unusual - maybe that's why it's working for others and not me (?)...
At this point, I'm just going to try to synch from ITunes and give up on MC.