Apparently, Microsoft’s Zune music players are failing all over the country today due to a software or firmware bug.
Reports indicate that almost the entire user base of 30GB Zune owners is affected…all three dozen of them.
the munchkin wrangler.
a magic daycare and novel factory in upper cryogenica
I went out last year about this time to get a “real” MP-3 player to replace the 500mb Sansa I had. I loved the Zune 8gb unit I looked at, and I bought it. When I got it home, much to my (at first) surprise, then later my blinding rage, I could not sync songs from MICROSOFT MEDIA PLAYER to my device?!? Hello?? This would be akin to an I-pod not syncing with a Mac with I-Tunes.
Lucky for the folks at Best Buy, they exchanged the Zune for a Sony unit and I have been happy ever since.
DRM failure.
Redmond’s DRM server ordered all the 30gig Zunes to self-brick at 12:01 or the 366th day of 2008 when they failed their checksums … apparently the goofs who wrote the firmware for the 30gigs used modulo 365 arithmetic for the date … forgot completely about this little thing called a leapyear.
Oh, and I use a sansa player, with linux based Rockbox written over its original DRM infested OS.
I can play anything I damned well please on it … just rip to mp3 and go.
OMG! I’m laughing so hard at this as I am one of those 30gb Zune owners that was affected and used to work with 2 different guys that owned DeLoreons. Great comparison there. I almost spit my drink on my screen. Thanks for the laugh!
[...] Hat tip Munchkin Wrangler [...]