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News

Massive Zune Die-off Precedes 2009

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 at 9:36 AM - by Jeff Gamet

Owners of Microsoft's 30GB Zune media player received an unexpected surprise on December 31 when their devices stopped working properly and locked up during the startup process. The self-bricking appears to have begun 24 hours before the date rollover into 2009, and so far there aren't any fixes available.

Microsoft's Zune forums are filled with users talking about Zunes that spontaneously rebooted, then froze while displaying a loading screen. So far, the issue appears to be limited to the first generation Zune model.

One forum poster commented "My Zune has been stuck on the loading page for about 15 minutes... No buttons I press work... even restarting it doesn't work... Someone please help frown Oh now ALL 3 ZUNES IN MY HOUSE ARE LIKE THIS."

Some Zune owners went so far as to suggest users crack open the device's case and reposition the battery cables, although that seems to only be a temporary fix.

Microsoft had hoped its Zune product line would dethrone the iPod as the dominant portable media player on the market, but so far they haven't received wide-spread public approval like Apple's devices have. Issues like this, however, aren't likely to help Microsoft chip away at the iPod's top slot -- and certainly makes for an unhappy New Year present for Zune owners.

[Thanks to Engadget for the heads up.]

14 comments from the community.

You can post your own below.

Photodan said:

December 31st, 2008 at 10:06 AM

The best comment that I’ve read from one of the unlucky Zune owners:

“Welcome to The Social.”

-Dan

   Quote

jimothy said:

December 31st, 2008 at 10:32 AM

oh no. This is going to affect several, possibly dozens, of people.

   Quote

geoduck said:

December 31st, 2008 at 11:17 AM

Apple should make versions of the V8 commercials with the Zune and the line “Dude, you coulda’ had an iPod”.

   Quote

geoduck said:

December 31st, 2008 at 11:48 AM

“All your Zune Are Belong To Us”

OK, OK Seriously now

In 1999 with the spector of Y2K one of the fixes was to add code to have effectvly push the rollover back a few years. We used 29 so anything dated after 1930 and before 2029 would read correctly. How much you want to bet that MS reused some old code that had a fix to push the rollover date back 10 years from 1999 to 2009. I can just imagine the programmer in 1999 saying “Of course 10 years is far enough. We’ll never be using this code in 2009…”

   Quote

Intruder said:

December 31st, 2008 at 12:01 PM

I guess they can’t handle leap-seconds.

   Quote

mrmwebmax said:

December 31st, 2008 at 12:10 PM

+

The “iPod killers,” having obviously lost the battle, have nobly thrown themselves, en masse, on their swords.

This is comedy gold.

   Quote

Intruder said:

December 31st, 2008 at 1:06 PM

The Microsoft Samurai?

   Quote

mrmwebmax said:

December 31st, 2008 at 1:12 PM

+

Or Microsoft’s inability to program in a 366-day Leap Year!

   Quote

deasys said:

December 31st, 2008 at 1:38 PM

Oh now ALL 3 ZUNES IN MY HOUSE ARE LIKE THIS

What!? Does such a household really exist? Can this be?

Those people have obviously never heard the expression we use down here in Texas: Fool me once…shame on you. Ya’ fool me…can’t get fooled agin

   Quote

Lee Dronick said:

December 31st, 2008 at 2:32 PM

@ Intruder “I guess they can?t handle leap-seconds.”

That was my first thought when I heard about this.

   Quote

Edward said:

December 31st, 2008 at 3:35 PM

based on comments by “thenextman” on digg (http://digg.com/microsoft/Zune_Fail_2 ) it appears that the zune can’t get its head around this being the 366th day of the year. this user set his system clock back a few months and the zune reset and worked fine.. however the zune still doesn’t work if setting the clock to the future.

just passing on

Ed

   Quote

Lee Dronick said:

December 31st, 2008 at 6:10 PM

Well I can commiserate with those affected by the Zune problem, I just killed my iPod Nano. It was in a pants pocket when I put the jeans in the clothes washing machine, it ran through the entire cycle and a few minutes in the dryer. The price we pay for them being so small and light. I do not yet know if it is permanently trashed or not, I have it in an electronics dryer. In the meantime I still have my son’s old 2nd Generation iPod and my iPhone, but I liked the Nano so as not use up the battery in the iPhone.

As to the Zune, MicroSoft will probably soon have a fix, but I would bet that most of the staff is on holiday.

   Quote

mhikl said:

January 3rd, 2009 at 2:28 AM

Bill, Bill, Bill. Ever ready Bill.  ‘Tis the New Year. It’s another 3 months till April Fools.

   Quote

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