Are all the MS Zunes dying?

http://gizmodo.com/5121311/30gb-zunes-failing-everywhere-all-at-once

by bdfh42 • 18 years ago

47 58 18 years ago

bdfh423• 18 years ago

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

jmtame2• 18 years ago

Does a blue screen accompany the freeze by any chance?

henning• 18 years ago

No, just the way a beach ball doesn't show up on my iPod, which I have to reset every few days.

jmtame2• 18 years 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.

paul9290• 18 years 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• 18 years 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• 18 years 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• 18 years 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=9888226...

that wouldn't explain why it's only on the 30 though.

allenbrunson• 18 years 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• 18 years ago

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

axod3• 18 years 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• 18 years 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!

icey5• 18 years 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

jonursenbach2• 18 years ago

Does the 360 really have a terrible reputation right now? I rarely hear about RRoD problems anymore in the sphere these days.

chaostheory• 18 years 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

mattmaroon11• 18 years ago

The new units are a lot more reliable.

mikeyur• 18 years 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.

mattmaroon11• 18 years ago

I wouldn't say the Xbox 360 has a terrible reputation. It's crushing the PS3 in unit sales, plus Xbox Live Arcade is monetizing like crazy. It does have quality issues (I'm on my 3rd) but Microsoft handles them so well, and the box is so great, that it doesn't seem to matter at all.

icey5• 18 years ago

In terms of reliability, the Xbox 360 does have a terrible reputation. Everyone who owns any console knows what "RRoD" means - Can you tell me what the failure response for a PS3 or a Wii is?

Reliability is not what most people look for when buying a console, so I don't think it hurts their sales terribly; but all of these problems cannot be good for Microsoft's bottom line.

I'm on my second 360, and other than the terrible phone support, their RMA process is decent. But when I bought my 360 I knew that this might happen because of all the other reports of RRoD out in the wild.

axod3• 18 years ago

Beating the PS3 doesn't say much though.

If only a better manufacturer entered the hardcore console market. Apple? Google? Anyone? Having a choice of 2 just sucks.

lunchbox• 18 years ago

>All of their "flagship" products have a terrible reputation right now

You're ignoring Office, SQL Server, Exchange, .NET, and SharePoint, among others. Your list of 3 "flagship" products is quite selective.

icey5• 18 years ago

I should have said consumer products. I should have also included Internet Explorer on my list.

bdfh423• 18 years ago

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

bdfh423• 18 years ago

Turns out this may only be a temporary fix...

ratsbane• 18 years 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• 18 years 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• 18 years ago

Its so irreverent it hurts. Upvote for balls.

mattmaroon11• 18 years ago

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

raganwald• 18 years 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.

mattmaroon11• 18 years ago

Ha, I'm pretty sure they sold at least 50.

vaksel• 18 years ago

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

vlad2• 18 years ago

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

parenthesis• 18 years ago

Because a certain contingent likes to see Microsoft mess up?

icey5• 18 years ago

You don't have any interest at all as to what would cause an entire product line to fail essentially simultaneously?

vlad2• 18 years 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• 18 years ago

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

showerst• 18 years ago

Both of them?!

kzar• 18 years 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

snprbob86• 18 years ago

The solution is to "wait until tomorrow".

Quite embarrassing... but thankfully benign.

http://zuneinsider.com/archive/2008/12/31/30gb-zune-issues-o...

Are all the MS Zunes dying?

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