Microsoft is just squeezing in under the wire to claim the rights to “weirdest tech story of the year.”Last night at approximately 2 AM, every 30GB Zune model on the planet crashed... The Zunes reset, powered up, then froze on the loading bar screen, and no conventional method of resetting them appears to work.
This is brought to you courtesy of Microsoft, who has been selling a video game console with a nearly 100% fail rate for three years. The Zune situation is all the more disasterous however seeing as all of them failed at the exact same moment, which people have taken to calling 2K9.
"Right, so this is a weird one: we're getting tons of reports—tons—about failing Zune 30s. Apparently, the players began freezing at about midnight last night, becoming totally unresponsive and practically useless.
The crisis has been dubbed by Zune users 'Y2K9', due to the apparently synchronized faceplantings across the country... This report is consistently corroborated by literally hundreds of others across the various Zune support and fan forums."
Thanks to user DigiTekh for the tip on the Gamepolitics story!
If your Zune is turned off, don't do what I did and turn it on to see if you are affected. You are, and like mine, your Zune will sit at the boot screen until it dies.
Mine has been acting really funky the last couple days (wouldn't take a charge, then it would, but it wouldn't turn on, but then it would, etc), I guess this is the culmination.
I'm looking forward to hearing why this happened. I don't really feel angry right now, more amused, actually. If it drags on, I'm sure my disposition will slide to the darker side, though.
Unbelievable! I think I prefer the way my Zune broke. I got a 120gb Gears2 special zune which freezes after syncing 3.2gb of music. Without fail. The instructions for resetting the device wiped out all the special Gears content and there is no way to get that stuff back (not even via MS) and didn't fix the problem, the second I try to go over 3.2 KABOOM! MS "can't repro" the problem and won't replace it even if I send it in, so fuck them.
No more Zunes for me. I bought a 16gb Nano 4thG and couldn't be happier to be back in the land of iTunes. Too bad about the Zune subscription though, the service is actually worth the cost of admission if you have a Zune (huge selection, $15 a month for unlimited - DRM'd so no iTunes syncing - downloads)
Incompetence != Evil. This move would go against any plan for global domination.
Seriously. Hilarious.
__________________ I keep a conscience uncorrupted by religion, a judgment undimmed by politics and patriotism, a heart untainted by friendships and sentiments unsoured by animosities.
If your Zune is turned off, don't do what I did and turn it on to see if you are affected. You are, and like mine, your Zune will sit at the boot screen until it dies.
Should've read this post first. Stuck at loading screen....
Wow that's cool, actually. Like a forced expiration date to get you to buy the much improved Zune second gen models. We have two 80GB Zunes and we love'em dearly. You cannot beat ZunePass!!
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Gamertag/PSN/Zune: ElektroDragon
PAX & Video Games Live attendee. ECA Founding Member
The funny thing is, the only reason I bought the Zune to begin with was I had so many "free" MS points because of my faulty Xboxes. I got the Zune because I could use the points on their store for songs.
Maybe they should think twice before they start laying off 17% of their workforce....
The funny thing is, the only reason I bought the Zune to begin with was I had so many "free" MS points because of my faulty Xboxes. I got the Zune because I could use the points on their store for songs.
Maybe they should think twice before they start laying off 17% of their workforce....
Yeah, just layoff the losers who put this bug in, and the ones who didn't catch it in test. A leap year bug bricking devices? Are they serious?!
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Gamertag/PSN/Zune: ElektroDragon
PAX & Video Games Live attendee. ECA Founding Member
My wife's Zune is apparently also affected. Now I'm afraid to turn my Halo 3 one on. The thing is though, what will leaving it off do? Who is to say that this won't happen if i turn it on tomorrow, or a week from now?
If you want to void the warranty and make your Zune work (from a moderator on the Zune forums):
Quote:
It appears that it is related to the hardware clock in the Zune 30. People are reporting that by disabling the Windows Time Service on their PC, resetting the date on their PC (to something like 12/04/2008) , and stopping all Zune-related Windows services (and hard-resetting the Zune device [which involves opening it up]) they are able to get it all working again.
It's official. Microsoft = evil. They are trying to take over the world.
If MS is taking over the world how would their fail rate help them?
I don't own a zune, but dam MS lol, g e t ... i t ...t o g e t h e r.
Sony makes their shit too complex and sucks at software
MS makes a piece of shit with amazing software
Apple makes good shit but dam if I don't hate their commercials and paying extra for brand.
So apparently the problem is something to do with the internal clock on the Zune 30s not being able to handle the last day of a leap year. They aren't pushing out any kind of fix because it's supposed to resolve itself when the date rolls to Jan. 1 2009.
Which is all well and fine, I think I can pull another 6 hours without my Zune, but... if they aren't actively going to fix the problem, what happens next leap year?
Another single day won't be a huge hit, I guess. Also, I imagine the number of Zune 30s still in active use by the next leap year will probably be pretty small. But this is definitely a hugely swollen, glowing red, pus filled zit on the end of Microsoft's nose.
I'm sure that the next update will try to make sure it doesn't happen again with leap years. I'm happy they were able to find a solution to the problem within a small period of time.
For those wondering, the solution is to unplug your Zune 30 from any power source (dock, sync cable) and then just let the battery run down. Wait to restart it again until sometime on 1/1/09, at which time the problem should resolve itself, according to this post on the Zune support site.
That being said, this was just an awful, awful testing oversite on MS' part (I'm a performance tester myself, but work with lots of functional test groups). I unfortunately expect someone in the Zune group to start off the new year with a not-very-fun meeting with their manager.
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