I don't have an MP3 player, but I was looking at the United Kingdom webpage for the iRiver (I chose UK because it's in English; seems just like the page for France) to see if they had any extra information, and noticed something.

This may sound like a stupid question, but I was looking at the picture, and apparently there are two USB ports on the iRiver. I found this PDF file which seems to explain the two USB ports and their use. Are you downloading online music to the iRiver (and using the "MEDIA" port) or downloading music from your computer (and using the "DATA" port)?
Maybe you are using the wrong USB port.

malu