30GB Zunes Globally Freeze: Leap Year Bug?
This has to be the greatest New Year's gift ever for a large tech company. Wait, it's not New Year's yet, you may say. Ah, but it would be, if it were not for Leap Year. And that is a solid theory that has been posited. Some are theorizing that the bug is because of Leap Year, due to the almost synchronized wave of failing Zunes crossing the world as the time zones all entered Dec. 31st.
That seems to be a very good working theory. However, it's not 100% in sync with 12 midnight, as far as we can tell from reports. And reports are all over the place, like here, here, and here. Be aware, any attempt to reach those forums will be slooooow.
The normal hard reset procedures do not seem to work, and although some have tried taking the device apart to force a hard reset, that would void your warranty, and if Microsoft were to need to recall these devices (hopefully a software fix will do the trick, rather than that), they may not look kindly on such disassembling. We would recommend holding off on that sort of attempt.
There's no official word from Microsoft yet, but you have to assume they are scrambling. This has to be a major blow to Microsoft's already unsuccessful try at taking market share from Apple. Granted, these are older devices, but this will definitely hurt the company's reputation, even if (when?) they fix the problem.
Have any of you readers had this issue? If so, let us know. And if so, you can relate to the video below.
Update: Microsoft says their brilliant fix will be here at 12 midnight, when we reach January 1st. After that, your device should recover, though they recommend you let the battery run out. More details here.
Comments
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That's so bad. I would be pissed if that would happen to my MP3 player, although I accidentally fell of a bridge into the water when I broke my Creative ZEN Vision M. :( Still Microsoft should give free exchanges for working Zunes even though the customers ran out of the warranty time. |
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Never had a problem with mine :) |
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I doubt Microsoft will have many returns. People should be able to do a hard reset on them tomorrow, if it's just the UI crashing while trying to interpret the internal clock. |
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This will clear itself today. Quote from MS on the issue: "Early this morning we were alerted by our customers that there was a widespread issue affecting our 2006 model Zune 30GB devices (a large number of which are still actively being used). The technical team jumped on the problem immediately and isolated the issue: a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year. The issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009. We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset tomorrow (noon, GMT). By tomorrow you should allow the battery to fully run out of power before the unit can restart successfully then simply ensure that your device is recharged, then turn it back on. If you’re a Zune Pass subscriber, you may need to sync your device with your PC to refresh the rights to the subscription content you have downloaded to your device. " In other words, don't panic, your Zune will be fine. |
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