7 ms·

Are all the MS Zunes dying?

47 points by bdfh42 18y ago

bdfh42 18y ago
More here - http://gizmodo.com/5121311/reports-30gb-zunes-failing-everywhere-all-at-once http://gizmodo.com/5121311/reports-30gb-zunes-failing-everyw... not good news for Microsoft and even worse news for those that have 30GB Zunes
jmtame 18y ago
Does a blue screen accompany the freeze by any chance?
- henning 18y ago
  No, just the way a beach ball doesn't show up on my iPod, which I have to reset every few days.
  - jmtame 18y ago
    I should know better on a thread of mostly Zune users eh? ;) Truthfully, my iPhone acts up sometimes. The browser randomly crashes, and I'll occasionally need to reset when it freezes. It's nothing bad enough to cause me to want to switch, but it does happen.
    - rbanffy 18y ago
      A thread full of Zune users? So that's why there are so few messages ;-) Now, seriously, that's a sign of pretty bad QA to let the device almost brick itself (there is the hard reset fix) because of a buggy firmware update.
paul9290 18y ago
This title led me to believe this was about market-share not some publicity glitch. Well I think they are dying! I mean I can't make fart noises with it - MeH!
shizcakes 18y ago
Thinking about this - I bet it's a Leap Year issue (some dumbass set a "days in the year" upper bound at 365 days) and since it was first released in 2006, this would be the first time it has occurred.
- dangoldin 18y ago
  It's odd that it's only affecting the 30GB version though. I would expect the software to be the same unless one version was just manufactured with different software.
- tdonia 18y ago
  i wonder if the leap second could be a catalyst, especially if the zune 'year' is really just a collection of seconds sectioned into 'days' meaning december 31st is an anomaly that has been encoded with 1 extra second. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98882269&ft=1&f=1001 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9888226... that wouldn't explain why it's only on the 30 though.
allenbrunson 18y ago
almost certainly some time-related software glitch. so microsoft will be able to fix it with a patch, and everybody will be happy again. this reminds me of the first year i was using windows 95. i just happened to be awake one night at 2:00am when the daylight savings time change kicked in, and the computer dutifully changed the time to 1:00am. cool, i thought. then, an hour later, when it was 2:00am, once again it reset the clock to 1:00am. and so on, and so on ... microsoft issued a patch a few days later, and all was well.
mynameishere 18y ago
I'm surprised they've stuck with the tagline "Experience the Social".
- axod 18y ago
  Having a buggy mp3 player that crashes at the same time for everyone brings you all closer together. That's the social element. Then presumably you discuss music, make friends etc while ms releases a patch.
  - gamache 18y ago
    Hey, do you see iPod owners all flocking to iPod forums at the same time? Zune's like an mp3 player with a flash mob built right in!
    - angstrom 18y ago
      And everyone has a brick to throw...
icey 18y ago
This isn't great news for Microsoft. All of their "flagship" products have a terrible reputation right now: Vista - not worth the upgrade (I use Vista on one machine and don't really see a big issue with it either way). Xbox 360 - Red ring of death problems Zune - Apparently hit by a date bug
- jonursenbach 18y ago
  Does the 360 really have a terrible reputation right now? I rarely hear about RRoD problems anymore in the sphere these days.
  - chaostheory 18y ago
    I still like the 360 (games) over the wii and ps3, but console itself is still plagued with problems; most recently related to the latest xbox live update MS still seems to care more about meeting the shipping date than it does about quality
    - jonursenbach 18y ago
      If they cared about meeting the shipping date, Vista would have been way worse than it is.
  - mattmaroon 18y ago
    The new units are a lot more reliable.
  - mikeyur 18y ago
    I bought my unit on boxing day 2007, so just over a year now I've had my 360 and no RRoD problems so far knock on wood Out of all my 100+ friends on xbox live, I can only recall 2 having the problem (or at least telling people they had the problem). They had older units (early 2007 ish) and MS fixed it within a couple weeks - for another friend who had 2 faulty units they just gave him a new elite and apologized for his problems.
- mattmaroon 18y ago
bdfh42 18y ago
Some guy on Reddit thinks he has a solution see http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/7mnmo/zune_fix_get_a_tiny_screwdriver/ http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/7mnmo/zune_fix_g...
- bdfh42 18y ago
  Turns out this may only be a temporary fix...
ratsbane 18y ago
AT AN early morning hour On the last night of the year The Zune did sit and cower For it knew its end was near The Zune was cold and tired And although it was un-wired It had no friends to squirt No friends to be inspired And it feared the end would hurt But when the clock ticked "Two" A byte did move; a bit was flipped The program shuddered; then it tripped The old brown Zune was through Thirty gigabytes are soon made full Thirty gigabytes are what it's got Thirty gigabytes are quite a lot Thirty gigabytes of cotton wool The Zune has passed; it took a fall The music's stopped the stock has dropped It never "Played for sure" at all We wonder where is Balmer And imagine that he's ranting And raving at his crew They wish he would be calmer And stop his sweaty panting Oh look! He's thrown his shoe!
- nickb 18y ago
  12pm day before New Years My zune resets in the dark The loading bar Logo screen is freezing My music is sleeping I am numb Press up and back it isn't working It just lies there on the couch Microsoft went down to Charlotte They're not home to fix this bug And we wait For the next bugfix I'm feeling more alone Than I ever have before It's a brick and I'm drowning slowly My zune's a ghost and I'm headed nowhere It's a brick and I'm drowning slowly I call tech support at 12:30 I pace around phone lines are busy Then I plug it in nothing happens This shitty gift that I got Can't you see It's not me you're dying for Now I'm feeling more alone Than I ever have before It's a brick and I'm drowning slowly My zune's a ghost and I'm headed nowhere It's a brick and I'm drowning slowly As Hours went by It showed that it was not fine They told me, "son, it's time to tell the truth" It broke down, and I broke down Cause I was tired of waiting Let the power drain For the moment we're alone Yeah Its alone I'm alone Now I know it It's a brick and I'm drowning slowly My zunes a ghost and I'm headed nowhere It's a brick and I'm drowning slowly PS: huge apologies to Ben Folds for this irreverence.
  - sdurkin 18y ago
    Its so irreverent it hurts. Upvote for balls.
mattmaroon 18y ago
If a Zune dies in the forest, and nobody owns one, does Microsoft still hear the bloggers complain?
- raganwald 18y ago
  John Gruber wrote: > Last night, between midnight and 2 am, all 30 GB Zunes in the world apparently broke. I stared in wonder. They sold thirty Zunes!? Then I figured it out. I need more coffee.
  - mattmaroon 18y ago
    Ha, I'm pretty sure they sold at least 50.
vaksel 18y ago
how appropriate...a message board about zunes, not working.
vlad 18y ago
What does this have to do with hacker news...
- parenthesis 18y ago
  Because a certain contingent likes to see Microsoft mess up?
- icey 18y ago
  You don't have any interest at all as to what would cause an entire product line to fail essentially simultaneously?
  - vlad 18y ago
    If Google News and mainstream media cover it, as well as all sites that bash Microsoft, is it really hacker news-worthy that a Microsoft product fails at something?
jknight 18y ago
mine is working great. i've never had an issue with it. best purchase i've ever made from woot.com :D
showerst 18y ago
Both of them?!
kzar 18y ago
Microsoft's response is great: Q: What fixes or patches are you putting in place to resolve this situation? This situation should remedy itself over the next 24 hours as the time flips to January 1st. Q: What's the timeline on a fix? The issue Zune 30GB customers are experiencing today will self resolve as time changes to January 1. Q: Why did this occur at precisely 12:01 a.m. on December 31, 2008? There is a bug in the internal clock driver causing the 30GB device to improperly handle the last day of a leap year. Q: What is Zune doing to fix this issue? The issue should resolve itself. http://gizmodo.com/5121822/official-fix-for-the-zune-30-fail http://gizmodo.com/5121822/official-fix-for-the-zune-30-fail
snprbob86 18y ago
The solution is to "wait until tomorrow". Quite embarrassing... but thankfully benign. http://zuneinsider.com/archive/2008/12/31/30gb-zune-issues-official-update.aspx http://zuneinsider.com/archive/2008/12/31/30gb-zune-issues-o...

47 points by bdfh42 18y ago

More here - http://gizmodo.com/5121311/reports-30gb-zunes-failing-everywhere-all-at-once http://gizmodo.com/5121311/reports-30gb-zunes-failing-everyw... not good news for Microsoft and even worse news for those that have 30GB Zunes

jmtame 18y ago

Does a blue screen accompany the freeze by any chance?

henning 18y ago
No, just the way a beach ball doesn't show up on my iPod, which I have to reset every few days.
- jmtame 18y ago
  I should know better on a thread of mostly Zune users eh? ;) Truthfully, my iPhone acts up sometimes. The browser randomly crashes, and I'll occasionally need to reset when it freezes. It's nothing bad enough to cause me to want to switch, but it does happen.
  - rbanffy 18y ago
    A thread full of Zune users? So that's why there are so few messages ;-) Now, seriously, that's a sign of pretty bad QA to let the device almost brick itself (there is the hard reset fix) because of a buggy firmware update.

paul9290 18y ago

This title led me to believe this was about market-share not some publicity glitch. Well I think they are dying! I mean I can't make fart noises with it - MeH!

shizcakes 18y ago

Thinking about this - I bet it's a Leap Year issue (some dumbass set a "days in the year" upper bound at 365 days) and since it was first released in 2006, this would be the first time it has occurred.

dangoldin 18y ago
It's odd that it's only affecting the 30GB version though. I would expect the software to be the same unless one version was just manufactured with different software.
tdonia 18y ago
i wonder if the leap second could be a catalyst, especially if the zune 'year' is really just a collection of seconds sectioned into 'days' meaning december 31st is an anomaly that has been encoded with 1 extra second. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98882269&ft=1&f=1001 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9888226... that wouldn't explain why it's only on the 30 though.

allenbrunson 18y ago

almost certainly some time-related software glitch. so microsoft will be able to fix it with a patch, and everybody will be happy again. this reminds me of the first year i was using windows 95. i just happened to be awake one night at 2:00am when the daylight savings time change kicked in, and the computer dutifully changed the time to 1:00am. cool, i thought. then, an hour later, when it was 2:00am, once again it reset the clock to 1:00am. and so on, and so on ... microsoft issued a patch a few days later, and all was well.

mynameishere 18y ago

I'm surprised they've stuck with the tagline "Experience the Social".

axod 18y ago
Having a buggy mp3 player that crashes at the same time for everyone brings you all closer together. That's the social element. Then presumably you discuss music, make friends etc while ms releases a patch.
- gamache 18y ago
  Hey, do you see iPod owners all flocking to iPod forums at the same time? Zune's like an mp3 player with a flash mob built right in!
  - angstrom 18y ago
    And everyone has a brick to throw...

icey 18y ago

This isn't great news for Microsoft. All of their "flagship" products have a terrible reputation right now: Vista - not worth the upgrade (I use Vista on one machine and don't really see a big issue with it either way). Xbox 360 - Red ring of death problems Zune - Apparently hit by a date bug

jonursenbach 18y ago
Does the 360 really have a terrible reputation right now? I rarely hear about RRoD problems anymore in the sphere these days.
- chaostheory 18y ago
  I still like the 360 (games) over the wii and ps3, but console itself is still plagued with problems; most recently related to the latest xbox live update MS still seems to care more about meeting the shipping date than it does about quality
  - jonursenbach 18y ago
    If they cared about meeting the shipping date, Vista would have been way worse than it is.
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  The new units are a lot more reliable.
- mikeyur 18y ago
  I bought my unit on boxing day 2007, so just over a year now I've had my 360 and no RRoD problems so far knock on wood Out of all my 100+ friends on xbox live, I can only recall 2 having the problem (or at least telling people they had the problem). They had older units (early 2007 ish) and MS fixed it within a couple weeks - for another friend who had 2 faulty units they just gave him a new elite and apologized for his problems.
mattmaroon 18y ago

bdfh42 18y ago

Some guy on Reddit thinks he has a solution see http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/7mnmo/zune_fix_get_a_tiny_screwdriver/ http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/7mnmo/zune_fix_g...

bdfh42 18y ago
Turns out this may only be a temporary fix...

ratsbane 18y ago

AT AN early morning hour On the last night of the year The Zune did sit and cower For it knew its end was near The Zune was cold and tired And although it was un-wired It had no friends to squirt No friends to be inspired And it feared the end would hurt But when the clock ticked "Two" A byte did move; a bit was flipped The program shuddered; then it tripped The old brown Zune was through Thirty gigabytes are soon made full Thirty gigabytes are what it's got Thirty gigabytes are quite a lot Thirty gigabytes of cotton wool The Zune has passed; it took a fall The music's stopped the stock has dropped It never "Played for sure" at all We wonder where is Balmer And imagine that he's ranting And raving at his crew They wish he would be calmer And stop his sweaty panting Oh look! He's thrown his shoe!

nickb 18y ago
12pm day before New Years My zune resets in the dark The loading bar Logo screen is freezing My music is sleeping I am numb Press up and back it isn't working It just lies there on the couch Microsoft went down to Charlotte They're not home to fix this bug And we wait For the next bugfix I'm feeling more alone Than I ever have before It's a brick and I'm drowning slowly My zune's a ghost and I'm headed nowhere It's a brick and I'm drowning slowly I call tech support at 12:30 I pace around phone lines are busy Then I plug it in nothing happens This shitty gift that I got Can't you see It's not me you're dying for Now I'm feeling more alone Than I ever have before It's a brick and I'm drowning slowly My zune's a ghost and I'm headed nowhere It's a brick and I'm drowning slowly As Hours went by It showed that it was not fine They told me, "son, it's time to tell the truth" It broke down, and I broke down Cause I was tired of waiting Let the power drain For the moment we're alone Yeah Its alone I'm alone Now I know it It's a brick and I'm drowning slowly My zunes a ghost and I'm headed nowhere It's a brick and I'm drowning slowly PS: huge apologies to Ben Folds for this irreverence.
- sdurkin 18y ago
  Its so irreverent it hurts. Upvote for balls.

mattmaroon 18y ago

If a Zune dies in the forest, and nobody owns one, does Microsoft still hear the bloggers complain?

raganwald 18y ago
John Gruber wrote: > Last night, between midnight and 2 am, all 30 GB Zunes in the world apparently broke. I stared in wonder. They sold thirty Zunes!? Then I figured it out. I need more coffee.
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  Ha, I'm pretty sure they sold at least 50.

vaksel 18y ago

how appropriate...a message board about zunes, not working.

vlad 18y ago

What does this have to do with hacker news...

parenthesis 18y ago
Because a certain contingent likes to see Microsoft mess up?
icey 18y ago
You don't have any interest at all as to what would cause an entire product line to fail essentially simultaneously?
- vlad 18y ago
  If Google News and mainstream media cover it, as well as all sites that bash Microsoft, is it really hacker news-worthy that a Microsoft product fails at something?

jknight 18y ago

mine is working great. i've never had an issue with it. best purchase i've ever made from woot.com :D

showerst 18y ago

Both of them?!

kzar 18y ago

Microsoft's response is great: Q: What fixes or patches are you putting in place to resolve this situation? This situation should remedy itself over the next 24 hours as the time flips to January 1st. Q: What's the timeline on a fix? The issue Zune 30GB customers are experiencing today will self resolve as time changes to January 1. Q: Why did this occur at precisely 12:01 a.m. on December 31, 2008? There is a bug in the internal clock driver causing the 30GB device to improperly handle the last day of a leap year. Q: What is Zune doing to fix this issue? The issue should resolve itself. http://gizmodo.com/5121822/official-fix-for-the-zune-30-fail http://gizmodo.com/5121822/official-fix-for-the-zune-30-fail

snprbob86 18y ago

The solution is to "wait until tomorrow". Quite embarrassing... but thankfully benign. http://zuneinsider.com/archive/2008/12/31/30gb-zune-issues-official-update.aspx http://zuneinsider.com/archive/2008/12/31/30gb-zune-issues-o...