Microsoft Issues Workaround For Zune Freeze 277
UnknowingFool writes "As a followup to the Zune New Year's Eve meltdown, Microsoft has issued a workaround for what some users have correctly guessed was a bug caused by a leap year. To recover from the problem, let the Zune drain the batteries and restart it after noon on January 1, 2009. Many sites are reporting that Microsoft has 'fixed' the issue, but technically all Microsoft has done is to ask users to wait out the conditions that triggered the bug. Unless a software patch comes out, Zunes will suffer the same problem again in four years." Reader ndtechnologies adds, "According to posts in the Toshiba forum at anythingbutipod.com, the same bug that shut down millions of Zune 30's also affects the Toshiba Gigabeat S. The Zune 30 is based off of the Gigabeat S series and was co-developed by Microsoft with Toshiba."
Re:Can anyone explain this bug? (Score:1, Interesting)
I know nothing in particular about Zunes, but a shot in the dark (but based on some of the articles on the DRM tech in Vista I've read about) would be that it has to do with the DRM. The extra day in the year made the time count up further in the year than it expected, and it probably set off a tilt bit that caused it to think that someone was trying to hack it or something so it refused to run.
Maybe someone else with information to replace my frankly admitted speculation can confirm or deny...
Out of curiosity... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why does a music player need to know the date or time at all?
All they've done (Score:4, Interesting)
... all Microsoft has done is to ask users to wait out the conditions that triggered the bug.
And considering that the bug only came to light two days ago, that's pretty good.
I speak from experience. I'm a tech writer, and I've written literally thousands of bug summaries for customer support web sites and release notes. (In 1999, I did almost nothing else.) Finding the problem, identifying a workaround, and getting it out to the public in such a short time is pretty impressive.
Presumably they're working on a patch, but they won't say they anything about it until it's ready to go. It's an ironclad rule that you never talk about these things before they're ready, not if you want avoid vaporware lawsuits. It should be obvious to anybody that creating, testing, and staging a software patch takes a lot longer than writing up a workaround.
Re:It probably won't last another 4 years (Score:3, Interesting)
I think that at least part of the reason we collectively accept this has a lot to do with the idea that these devices are generally obsolete are at least significantly out of date after five years. If refrigerators and bicycles were making the same kind of advances as these other products, most people honestly wouldn't care if they junked out in five years. If your fridge was doubling in performance every 18 months, wouldn't you want to get a new one every six years or so to take advantage of the cost savings?
We're already starting to reach a point where the common user probably isn't putting their system to full use. In another few years, the baseline desktop models will probably have more than enough computational power to satisfy non-power users. Businesses running computationally heavy software will still need more power, but mom and pop won't even be able to scratch the surface of their eight core, eight gig RAM system with just office apps and email. At that point I can see people buying a desktop with the intention that it last for ten years or more.
Of course this just shifts the battlefield to the netbook and cell phone segment where the performance gains are going to be more significant. Eventually the hardware will peak in this area as well and once again the market will find some new segment to rush after; probably some guy who figures out how to cram all of that functionality into a watch capable of projecting a 3D holograph which is used for a display. Then that'll be the new craze as no one really needs to upgrade their netbook to the new 32 core model with 16 TB of storage space.
When the pace of technology is moving so fast that something becomes obsolete after five years anyhow, most people won't really care if it doesn't last much longer. A few might, but they're probably not in the majority. Add in our societies tendency to go after the product with the least cost upfront (regardless of whether or not it's a POS that will have to be replaced soon after purchase.) and that we're so willing to purchase replacements is it really any surprise the businesses have reacted to what the market seems to demand?
Re:Out of curiosity... (Score:3, Interesting)