Zune music players dying around the world
By John Lister
If you were planning to see in the New Year with some tunes from your Zune, you could be out of luck. Owners around the globe have been reporting that their 30GB model of the music player has mysteriously locked up and stopped working today.
The problem seems to have affected every machine, whether it was active or switched to idle. The players either spontaneously rebooted and froze solid during the boot screen, or shut down and then locked up during a manual restart. It appears the usual tricks for resetting a frozen Zune, such as holding the Back key and pressing the control pad upwards, aren’t having any effect.
The problem appears to only affect the 30GB edition of the Zune and it doesn’t seem to make any difference what version of firmware the machine is running.
Every account from a user who saw the machine reboot while in use (as opposed to turning it on later) and noted the time puts it at exactly midnight this morning Pacific time. At this time of year, you’d be forgiven for assuming such a global crash must be related to a 2008/9 variation on the Millennium Bug. However, it’s not a year-related issue as even the world’s most easterly time zone was still in 2008 at that point.
The problem appears to have started simultaneously around the world (that is, around 3am Eastern Standard Time, 8am in the United Kingdom and so on). That would thus suggest it’s not a date-related issue either, unless something deep in the device’s operating system is referring to the time in Microsoft’s home base of California.
At the time of writing, the official Zune support site said:
Customers with 30gb Zune devices may experience issues when booting their Zune hardware. We’re aware of the problem and are working to correct it. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience!
Some users say they’ve solved the problem through a ‘hard reboot’ which involves opening up the device and disconnecting the battery. However, that’s not an option for the faint-hearted and given the scale of the problem it’s probably safest to live without the device until Microsoft offers a solution.
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Entry was posted
on Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 at 3:36 pm
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Read more entries by John Lister.
Stumble It!
December 31st, 2008
Last night I tried to turn on my Zune, and it looked like it was going to work. It started to load up at the Zune screen, but then it froze!I did everything I could possibly do, I tried resetting it and it still didn’t work! I let the Zune sit by itself for about 5 hours and when I tried to turn it back on, the battery sign showed up so I recharged it. I really was convinced that it would finally unfreeze and work, but all the Zune did was freeze back up at the Zune loading screen. I’ve seen many people with similar issues, is there anyone that would mind giving me some help? Thanks!
http://i43.tinypic.com/f1lgk7.jpg
(picture of my frozen Zune so that you can see what I’m talking about)
December 31st, 2008
Opening the case, disconnecting and reconnecting the battery appears to be a fix. I just did it to two of them and they are working fine so far.
December 31st, 2008
Let’s face it; MS just can’t build hardware.
December 31st, 2008
ohh i totally know mine did the same thing i am so mad my zune is a stress relever and know i have to get a nother one and down load the same 1496 songs! uhhhh!
January 1st, 2009
same deal this is nutz could someone tell me how to crack this bitch open
January 1st, 2009
same deal. this is nutz could someone tell me how to crack this bitch open
January 3rd, 2009
its a microsoft product… what do you expect?
work without any problem? yeah!!! right!!!
dont cry about it, you know the crap you were buying, swallow it, live with the consequences of the mistakes you made
love the microsoft response to their customers:
Customers with [INSERT MICROSOFT PRODUCTS NAME THAT THE PUBLIC ARE TESTING] may experience issues when booting their hardware. We’re aware of the problem and are working to correct it. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience!
PD We were aware of the problem before releasing the product, we hope you dont notice it or that it magically disappear, but that didnt happened so now we must patch, replace, recall, apologize, give you FREE music to trick you and make you happy so you wont sue us, cause the sue could cost us millions, the money we dont wasted in testing in quality control.