“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,” John Herrman reports for Gizmodo.
MacDailyNews Take: Happy New Year, Microsoft-style!
Herrman continues, “The crisis has been dubbed by Zune users ‘Y2K9’, due to the apparently synchronized faceplantings across the country. According to tipster Michael, the Zune users experienced something like this: Apparently, around 2:00 AM today, the Zune models either reset, or were already off. Upon when turning on, the thing loads up and… freezes with a full loading bar (as pictured above). I thought my brother was the only one with it, but then it happened to my Zune. Then I checked out the forums and it seems everyone with a 30GB HDD model has had this happen to them.”
MacDailyNews Take: Wow, all three Zune sufferers affected at once! Quelle tragédie! Good thing the poor bastards have already long been helmeted for their own safety.
Full article here.
Tim Stevens reports much the same for Engadget, “[The] 30GB players started locking up at midnight last night, essentially bricking themselves without any help from their owners. The failures are coming 24-hours ahead of the big ’09 changeover, but that hasn’t stopped Zune aficionados from dubbed this unfortunate flaw ‘Z2K.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: In typical Microsoftian fashion, they can’t even come up with a consistent name for their latest abject failure.
Zunetards, hey, look over here! (snaps fingers) Hey! (whistles) Over here! (claps hands loudly) Look here!!! Consider this a gift of enlightenment. Now, go get yourselves a real media player: Apple’s iPod touch.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Chuckles the Microsoft CEO” for the heads up.]
Ballmer’s latest flying chair hit the “kill switch” accidentally.
Well, I’m sold…now if only I could find a store that carried a Zune within 3000 miles, my New Years will be complete. Does anyone know if you can buy them pre-frozen, or does one have to turn it on themselves? I’ll go look it up on my iPod Touch.
Another quality product from the boys at Redmond.
BSOD used to mean “Blue Screen of Death” for Windows users.
For Zune owners, it will now forever more be known as the Brown Squirt of Death.
You really cracked me up this time.
“Love will keep us together”????
I can’t stop laughing!
Keep writing, please.
Wahaha! I remember when the zune tattoo guy dumped the zune for an iPod. It looks like a lot more should have followed the lead of the original zune poster boy. And if not an iPod at least a working mp3 player like Creative’s Zen or something. Microsoft can’t seem to get anything right, especially appliances.
Happy New Years MDN!
Half a million Zune 30 GB would weigh 87.5 tons.
The Zune 30 GB is the most popular Zune so I suppose there could have been 500,000 of them sold.
Tons of reports of bricked Zunes is no exaggeration.
‘The Brown Screen of Death’.
<Insert funny but crude poop joke here>
It’s a feature, not a bug!
Zune fails. Dozens outraged. Film at 11.
It’s rather sad that this is the most press the Zune has had in quite some time.
-jcr
That sucks!! I know at least…. umm… well…. lets see… no one who owns one. LOL
This proves that virus writers target the weak regardless of market share.
RE: Sixvodkas @ “Better link yet? MS’s official Z2K site http://forums.zune.net/405909/ShowPost.aspx#405909“
This webpage is SO busy LOL! .. click the refresh on your browser and you will see second by second more Zune-exposed people posting in desperation. A completely fun and enjoyable experience (highly recommended). Thanks Sixvodkas for the linky.
I’m charging my iPod for tonight and it’s working because it’s made by a good company.
MS sold defective Zunes to the needy at Christmas. Zunes and Vista just shows the MS quality team at work (50% effort in 25% quality out).
I would expect that Ballmy and team will being getting lumps of Coal next year.
I’m with Wingsy on this, it sure sounds like a leap year bug. It sure wouldn’t be the first leap year related problem Microsoft has run into. (Excel 1900 bug, anyone? http://www.robweir.com/blog/2006/10/leap-back.html)
This is probably the funniest thing I’ve read all week!!
Zune service status
Status:
Customers with 30gb Zune devices may experience issues when booting their Zune hardware. We’re aware of the problem and are working to correct it. The Zune Social might be slow or inaccessible. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience!
Oh, the Zune Social is slow and inaccessible too! Ahahaha! Irony of ironies! This is absolutely ridiculous! Off I go to get my years worth of laughter from the thread on zune.net.
–mAc
@ JadisOne
This is likely to only be a delay by the way, as all the procedure does is reset the clock back to the default date & time. As soon as you sync the Zune and it updates the clock time and date I would expect that it’s,, Bam!!! dead again.
> I thought my brother was the only one with it, but then it happened to my Zune.
That’s amazing. Two members of the same family own Zunes. I guess lack-of-common-sense is a family trait.
MDN missed an opportunity to use the headline that technewsworld coined:
The Day The Zunes Stood Still
Must be a slow news day. Other stories breathlessly mention Charles Barkley being under suspicion of statutory DUI and Matt Damon getting a speeding ticket! The MSM needs a reboot.
Happy New Year all.
Reading the posts on Zune.net, something struck me. It’s taken the Zune to reveal the truth about Vista, Microsoft and it’s other products and services.
I think it’s safe to say that a good portion of the Zune owners are Microsoft fanboys. You can see it in the way they defend the little brown brick and attack the still working iPod. You can see it every time they troll this site and utter their mindless rants.
The more you read, the more you begin to sense what Microsoft’s users really think about Vista and the company itself. The mere lack of patience with Microsoft on this one issue suggests a deeper body of anger with the company and it’s products.
How many of you have said what’s below about Apple because something went wrong? I know it’s not many, if any.
———-
“NOW WHAT?!?!?! Microsoft, you suck! First Vista and now this!”
“This is really messed up…it’s like all my “Microsoft” products are failing on me”
“All of microsofts stuff has had big upgrades lately so will the Xbox and PC’s go down next? “
“i have been a big supporter of Microsoft product but i am loosing my faith. my 360 dies and now my zune and done even get me started on vista! maybe i should go with apple instead! this is real annoying.”
“They sold the defective Windows Vista and did they refund people’s money? Hell No!!! Then they tried to sell out as “The Mojave Project”. They really haven’t gotten a solution to it and like with Windows the best bet is to purchase a newer zune, well in the windows problem it was to purchase to the previous Windows version.”
“I sure would like to sue microsoft for developing bad software.”
“I cannot believe that this has happened. I bug my wife about being a Mac person and THIS?!?”
“I am really getting sick of MS products. It seams I am always looking to fix something with my desktop and laptop and now my zune! Arg! “
“You know what happens? FREEZE! FREEZE! FREEZE! Thank you and happy new year microsoft i have xbox, windows and zune. (btw next time i will buy playstation, ipod and download linux). “
“Same Old Song (or lack thereof).”
“Yea, it’s obvious that it’s not just a coincidence. “
“Microsofts Motives are now obvious ($$$$$) “
“Is not Microsoft/Mr Gates rich enough??? “
“so do you think microsoft killed it purposely? “
Ah Zune Thang’s back. With no problem on your Zune you probably don’t not have a 2006 Zune 30 model. Mind you, you probably don’t have much with a real computer that is only good for games instead of a true computer but hey, it’s hard to think straight considering where you must plug in your Zune at night.
It is sort of giving us the real statement here when the true statement is “I pull the Zune out of my gluteus maximus receptacle and I put my Zune in the Zune dock on my Zune-enabled clock radio and woke up to the sweet sounds of “Love Will Keep Us Together” by The Captain and Tennille just like I do every morning. It’s a great way to start the day and it puts a smile on my face.”
Now you may not believe it, and we would be wasting our time trying to convince you, that’s the reality of the situation. However the truth is, Microsoft believes it.
http://www.zune.net:80/en-US/support
Say hi to Enderle when he gets to your bottom.
See you later Zunehole.
Leave Zune Tang alone. We like him, he’s funny.
Road Warrior…(Psssst) Read enough of ZT’s posts and you’ll get a deeper understanding of him.
Zune Tang…Welcome back. Don’t let Balmer keep you locked up for so long.
I know this is a stupid question but is there a Mac user out there who has a Zune, connected it to their computer and experienced the same problem? Is it possible this is all cause by Vista and not by the Zune itself?
What makes me ask this is something on Zune.net:
“Note: If you connect your player to a computer before noon GMT on January 1, 2009, you’ll experience the freeze mentioned above—even if that computer does not have the Zune software installed.”
Is it just me, or does that backwards zune logo look like it says anus?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Ooo! I wet ’em!
And to think Bill Gates now runs a ‘think tank’ to help come up with the next killer technology.
What does he call his kiddy club? BGs? No. Barry Gibb wouldn’t like that. Darn.
Was it EBGBs? No. Too obvious.
H2SO4? Nah. That’s already taken.
Whatever…