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Microsoft Zunes Committing Mass Suicide
jddeluxe writes "There are multiple reports springing up all over the internet of a mass suicide of Microsoft 30GB Zune players globally. Check Zune forums, Gizmodo, or other such sites; the reports are spreading rapidly, except apparently to the Microsoft official Zune site."
Not to mention I doubt it's a 30 megabyte player. More like gigabyte. Lame.
I also like how the Microsoft clearly talks about the problem, despite the summary claiming otherwise.
According to Herman at gizmodo, this is the solution:
"Your zune will need a "hard reset."
To do this, use a small screwdriver to pop off the plastic shielding where the zune cable plugs into and remove the two screws on either side of the plug. Next pop the cover off and locate the battery plug at the top left corner of the zune, using your screw driver, pop the cable connection half way off, and do this to the other plug on the right side. Wait 3 seconds, then push down the right connector and then the left battery connecter. Your zune should start up immediately. Press the backing of the zune down (make sure headphone jack is aligned) and put the screws and cover back in place.
It's an easy process but if you're unsure don't attempt it if you think you'll screw it or something. :)"
Not pretty, but it might help those of you who have this problem.
According to others on the forum, it is caused by the new firmware, so you might not want to update it. Changing the clock might be a temporary fix if you want the new firmware.
I have 2 of them. 1 for hacking the other for my daughter. Her zune locked up, I went downstairs and dug out of the box the old zune that has never been updated. Yes date and time are pretty close to accurate.
MSFT drones mucked up the clock ocde in the firmware over the past year.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Zunes with older firmwares are unaffected, a hard reset will blow away the current firmware and get your Zune working again.
Already have the fix posted at The Tech Empire
Whoot, go me.
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
You must be new here. The editors are such in name only.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
Day 365 has passed and this is day 366. This has happened before. This will happen again. All will be well tomorrow.
Thank you,
Microsoft Zune PM
Very much sensationalist. To me, suicide would indicate smoke is coming out of these en masse. Rather, it is a software glitch that MS will probably release a utility to fix in a day or two. Nothing to see here, move on.
Disclaimer: On the other hand, I am kind of a psycho...
So now there are three things wrong with the summary: Microsoft is spelled with a dollar sign, the player holds 30 GB (not Mb), and the Zune support site link is mentioning the problem.
Two sentences, three errors. Can we get an update to the summary, please?
It's actually a long tradition that started with Compu$erve.
If you're primarily a Linux user and then try to get anything running on a Windows server, the $ will seem quite appropriate. It seems the only thing M$ doesn't do to hit you up for more cash is rent Windows by the hour. What's so wrong with expressing that opinion neatly in a single character change?
That too is common. Other names you might hear/read in a similar vein (which may or may not reflect my personal opinion) include Burger Thing, Qwost, Stop and Rob, Tragic Markup, Circuit Shitty, etc.
It seems the only thing M$ doesn't do to hit you up for more cash is rent Windows by the hour.
They're working on that too. No joke. IIRC, it was posted on Slashdot before. I think it had something to do with a patent.
The Wii is the dominant console in the US.
The Xbox 360 is dead in Japan and mainland Europe. Still somewhat alive in the UK but easily being outsold by the PS3. And the only with the huge price cut has the 360 been managing to outsell the PS3 in the US.
The Wii and PS3 have been absolutely destroying the 360 in worldwide sales since 2007.
(waits for the inevitable response quoting that infamous Xbox fanboy console sales 'tracking' site...)
Mine's doing the same thing. I've used the crap out of the thing for about 18 months and it has worked flawlessly.. until now that is. This is appearing on the support site now.
"Status: Customers with 30gb Zune devices may experience issues when booting their Zune hardware. Weâ(TM)re aware of the problem and are working to correct it. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience!"
I got a 120gb iPod for Christmas so I'm watching this fiasco with a smirk. I had hoped to get a few bucks for it on ebay though.
Yes, but ONLY the RROD is covered under that warranty. The 360 has been plagued with other issues, including a high optical drive failure rate, disc scratching, and various other lockups and error conditions not related to RROD. And you're out of luck if you get one of those conditions, which is why many people clog the exhaust vents with a towel when they get one of these other issues, hoping to induce a RROD and get a free replacement.
Dont ever go near accounting - its called accounts payable.
You purchase a good, the account (less terms or more exotic terms)
becomes due upon purchase date.
he's out 50 + the cost of replacement (if he chooses to replace).
Personally I *didn't* replace after my ipod broke (or rather I got
a cheap-ass mp3 player for free somebody won).
That sort of mark-to-market valuation (the price of the asset is what
the market will bear or in this case, what the customer is willing to
pay for it) is what got us into this mess.
It's already kind of lame when someone spells it M$ or Micro$oft in a comment but...
Yeah. I'm one of the ones that had to learn to not be childish with that use on /.
Do you go back as far to CP/M? The history of CP/M, CP/M-86, QDOS and the *original* PC-DOS? If you had - and I suspect you don't - you might cut some people some slack for that usage.
There exists a pre-PC-DOS link to a statement that Bill Gates put out regarding piracy of BASIC and denigrating everyone for how much money he was losing, how much he and his guys had invested in time and dollars and so forth. It was a little whiney, but he was pretty much spot on regarding the whole piracy thing. http://www.digibarn.com/collections/newsletters/homebrew/V2_01/gatesletter.html
And in those days - just like today - we all paid close attention to Intel. The 8086 was out there, we were all waiting for CP/M-86 stability to get a better computing environment. And CP/M-86 was taking time because it was work and because it was going to be (and eventually was) a quality product.
Seattle Computer Products, a hardware mfgr, created the Quick and Dirty Operating System (QDOS) and despite revisionist history, to ostensibly debug their hardware in anticipation of CP/M-86.
The follow-on history is very nicely summarized right here: http://74.125.45.132/search?q=cache:tIEkLM0yDDkJ:maben.homeip.net/static/S100/software/microsoft/DOS/The%2520origins%2520of%2520MS-DOS.ppt+qdos+S-100+quick+and+dirty+operating+system&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us - that's the html/cached version, if you want the PPT file, it's here: http://maben.homeip.net/static/S100/software/microsoft/DOS/The%20origins%20of%20MS-DOS.ppt
Part of the backstory on his money loss was that the Osborne had come out, but then the KayPro did too, was doing better, and was getting a lot of attention for the superior (to MS) S-BASIC. So, sales of MS BASIC were not what the company expected. In fact, here's the backstory on Microsoft's creation and the importance of MS-BASIC. I putting the cached link and the orig - I couldn't get the orig server to respond as I write this: http://74.125.45.132/search?q=cache:kKA51ycXpCAJ:www.thocp.net/companies/microsoft/microsoft_company.htm+history+of+altair+basic&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us and http://www.thocp.net/companies/microsoft/microsoft_company.htm
But add up the history: BASIC w/ license disputes, QDOS w/ license disputes, OS/2 w/ license disputes, Windows w/ license disputes.
Microsoft was once a darling company to many of us. They freed us from the clutches of IBM mini-computers and mainframes at work. It was a pain in the ass, but we could do desktop programming in BASIC rather than getting time to do our FORTRAN calculations on an IBM.
IBM was under attack by the US Justice Dept. in the early 80s - we couldn't have been happier. Then, Microsoft - as a company - was becoming the new IBM, with all of its evil.
I - and many others - were quite accustomed to calling them Micro$oft and M$ by the mid-to-late 80s for their stunts.
I lived through that history. I watched a company that I supported putting the screws to people in the industry.
I was pissed the first time a pretty good post of mine was labeled troll and attacked with
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
Please note that is not a criticism of the Microsoft employees but of the corporate cultural at the executive level that lead them to those issues.
I'm not an MS employee, but I work at a large semiconductor company. I really like my coworkers and my boss, but the executives running this company are a bunch of idiots. As a result, our company isn't performing all that well, and our products are shoddy (it's hard to make good products with no funding, and when you lay off design teams before they have a chance to fix any bugs). My job consists mainly of trying to come up with workarounds for bugs.
If someone were to insult my company's products, I wouldn't be offended at all, and I'd probably agree with them.
As far as I'm concerned, any low-level employee who gets upset about someone insulting his company and its products has emotional issues. It's just a job, and unless you're an executive, you have no real control over anything, and also no responsibility for anything.
It's 2008/2009, right?
Please explain to me how Microsoft bungles such a simple thing. Do they really not test this crap or what?
From the bias of someone about to start my dissertation research in programming languages, I'd say it probably has a lot to do with the language in which the Zune is most likely programmed: C or C++.
When you can get numeric overflow or underflow from adding, multiplying, subtracing, etc. numbers, and the programming language has no standard support for letting you know that that overflow/underflow occurred, you're more likely to run into trouble. Because even if your testing procedures cause the overflow/underflow to occur, it's possible that the consequences of it will go un-noticed by the testing procedures.
I'm personally of the belief that for most modern applications and processor speeds, C/C++ trade away too much runtime and compile-time safety, in order to retain high performance.
Link
Bonus: No leap-second problem to deal with today.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Microsoft has announced their official fix:
Really. That's their fix.
If you have a Zune, but haven't used it today, don't turn it on before 0000 UT 01 JAN 2009.