Shoddy programming by Microsoft led to Zune crash
By Mike Ferro
Recently we covered the worldwide Zune crash that left the device disabled for a whole day. According to some programmers the issue was caused by shoddy programming on the part of Microsoft.
I am sure many owners were shocked when their Zunes stopped working collectively. We put up a story recently that provided step by step directions on fixing the seemingly dead device. As it turns out, thanks to some snooping done by programmers on the Zuneboard, the reason for the device failure was due to a very simple programming mistake.
This has caused many on the forums to question the quality of Microsoft’s products. After the initial widespread reports of Zunes dying, it caused many to refer to the issue as “RRoD for Zune.” This harkens back to the Xbox 360 red ring of death issue.
It seems that Microsoft’s venture into consumer products has been a rough ride starting with the Xbox 360. Microsoft has practiced the launch first and patch later strategy with every software release. However, that same strategy does not work all that well when it comes to consumer electronics.
Programmers have identified that main cause of the Zune meltdown lies in this snippet of code:
year = ORIGINYEAR; /* = 1980 */
while (days > 365)
{
if (IsLeapYear(year))
{
if (days > 366)
{
days -= 366;
year += 1;
}
}
else
{
days -= 365;
year += 1;
}
}
If you look at the nested if (days > 366) loop, you will notice that there is no other conditional to break it out if the original condition is not met. Due to the ‘while loop’ this will loop until the 24 hour period is over and the device is outside of the leap year day.
It seems like a seemingly simple mistake for Microsoft to make considering the core business of the company is software programming. I am curious if Microsoft is capable of releasing a firmware update to fix the issue. If the company is unable to do so, then the same issue will happen again in four years. Hopefully by then most consumers will have moved onto bigger and better players.
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Entry was posted
on Monday, January 5th, 2009 at 1:55 am
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Read more entries by Mike Ferro.
Stumble It!
January 5th, 2009
Let’s see your mistake free music player device software eh?
You bootlegged this from where? Ars? TechCrunch? Gadget Blog? Whatever. Must be nice to get paid to recycle posts from other sites!
Convenient you leave out the fact that the exact same flaw also affected music players from other companies, not JUST Microsoft. Being a hater though you would leave that out.
January 5th, 2009
Microsoft issued a statement to the media stating that they resolved the Zune Y2K9 problem. First, Microsoft didn’t actually do anything. Their stated fix was telling people to wait until the next day. Second, Microsoft still has not addressed the fact that the supposed fix did not work on all of the Zune 30 players. There are plenty of players that cannot get past the boot phase, getting locked into an endless loop despite completely draining the battery as per their instructions.
Most the affected Zune 30 players are actually out of warranty and in a true show of support for its Zune customers Microsoft has removed its support phone number from the Zune community website.
January 5th, 2009
DavidB – And where do you think Ars, TechCrunch, or whoever got the story from? Everyone has sources and Mike has cited his.