Zune Extinction Event: Microsoft Music Players All Freeze Up at Once

[bijou]

And on the 366th day of the year, the music died.

Thousands of Zune portable media players made by Microsoft Corp. suddenly froze up early Wednesday, Dec. 31, labeling Internet wits to label the phenomenon "Z2K."

The model affected was the Zune 30, which sports a 30-gigabyte hard drive and was first released in November 2006, though it is still sold.

...

Glad I bought an iPod.

[Schadenfreude]

Hey, that's the one I have. I didn't notice any problems, but I don't think I used it in the last few days. Maybe it self-corrected. 

[jinxmchue]

Hey, that's the one I have. I didn't notice any problems, but I don't think I used it in the last few days. Maybe it self-corrected. 

"Later models, including the flash-memory-based Zune 4, Zune 8 and Zune 16, as well as the hard-drive-based Zune 80 and Zune 120, were spared."

And, of course, it was human stupidity at work:

"Later in the day, Microsoft finally figured it out. While writing some of the driver software, the world's biggest software company had forgotten to compensate for leap years. The solution? Wait 24 hours until Jan. 1."

Derr!