December 31st, 2008
Users reporting 30 GB Zune failures
Users with 30 GB Zunes are reporting their players are bricking. There is still no word from Microsoft about what’s causing the problems or what users should do to fix their devices.
(Updates from Microsoft can be found at the bottom of this post.)
From Neowin.net: “It appears as though only 30GB Zunes are currently affected and some reports indicate that only Zunes with the latest firmware are affected, but this hasn’t yet been confirmed.”
Could the addition of a leap-year second have anything to do with the Zune meltdown? Is Apple jamming signals? Do we all have our tinfoil hats on?
Stay tuned….
Update No. 1 (11:30 a.m. ET): It’s not much, but a Zune spokesperson provided the following statement: “We’re looking into the situation and will update you as soon as possible.”
Update No. 2 (10:30 a.m. ET on January 1): A note on the Zune Insider site confirms the problem has to do with the leap-year second. The problem was caused by “a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the Zune 30 device handles a leap year,” according to Microsoft officials. Microsoft advised customers to recharge their devices and wait for the issue to resolve itself — without any new patches or fixes — as the time flipped to January 1. More specifics on the Zune 30 bricking problem can be found on Zune Insider.
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