Who else is "fed up" with their Zune & its firmware?

Question

You know I paid $225 for my Zune player about six or so months ago. Then of course I bought the obligatory accessories. Add about another $90 for power adapters, cords, docking stations. Then I paid $100 for a tabletop dock with speakers and FM tuner, etc and Aux inputs, etc.

So after like $500 invested into this device, about 170 albums, and a dozen full length feature films in it, it conks out on me!

Now I know, there's some kind of bug out there in the "firmware". Apparently because of the fact that this is a leap year, the internal "clock" on the player couldn't handle the change in dates, and everyone's Zune player had a brain-fart at 12:01 a.m. today (Jan. 31st, 2008).

Of course now its frozen on the loading screen.

So I dutifully paid my $6 for a screwdriver. I popped the little plastic cover off the bottom of the player where the data cable goes in, removed the two tiny phillips screws, located the battery, unhitched the little plastic locking piece, and disconnected it.

Problem solved, right? Well it was working fine until, and here's where the HITCH is, until I tried to sync another full length feature film into it.

That's when it went back to being frozen.

So I figured it out that its not the hardware. Its the firmware. Once you connect it to your computer and try and sync it, it uses your computer's clock to reset its clock and voi la! The thing crashes again.

Now the funny thing is, the player itself is great. Even though its got 30 gigs of storage in it, it works fine once you "hack" the way to arrange all of your stuff in it the way you want it arranged.

I mean if they made it more accessible and made it so it wasn't so dang hard to access because of all of the MPAA and RIAA lawsuits hanging over their heads, wouldn't it just be really cool to finally realize its complete and ultimate potential?

It took me awhile to figure out how to upload my favorite movie DVD's into the thing and they play wonderfully. But it seems to me Microsoft has a great product but its configured so horribly that maybe we, as the consumer, should start writing them and all of their complicit intellectual property idiots and make them all get together and make US happy instead of selling us an entertainment machine that does only 1/2 the job all of the time.

So all fo the above is the reason for my question to everyone out there is, "Who else is "fet up" with their Zune & its firmware?"

Answer 1

Sorry, but even with this little hiccup, the Zune firmware still presents significantly less problems than all iPods do. Just look around this section of Yahoo, and you'll generally see almost every question for help with some problem is related to the iPod. The Zune's firmware is the best of all the major players I've used. As for some of the other stuff you rant about...I have no clue why you spent all that money on things other than the Zune. I merely paid $250 for my Zune, plus about an extra $60 for a warranty--everything else I needed came with it, and I only spent $20 more buying a program that breaks drm. If you wanted all that other stuff, like the dock, just to have it, then that's not Microsoft's problem. And the main problems I've had with the Zune after purchasing it have been with the crappy software--not the firmware.



Trust me, I have an iTouch, too...and you'd complain way more, way more often, if you had one of those.

Answer 2

i could on no account say a concept is "purely" a concept. Years, even many years, of study generally is going right into a concept and the info to assist it and it merits the respect it has earned. My concern is that many people on the two factors of in spite of the fact that argument is modern will interchange the words actuality and concept. all of us understand that gravity exists, that's a actuality. yet something in any respect which you may desire to "end" approximately this is hypothesis. concept opens the possibility to new solutions. Tis my own own opinion that the theories on time will at some point be disproved. And that discovery will open the doorways to a great sort of unanswered questions that we mortals have.

Answer 3

This is a widespread malfunction with only the 30G models (It's a bug in a driver for a part that is only used in the Zune 30). Mine and my hubby's are doing the same thing. Read the posting below from the Zune.net forum written by a support tech. The internal clock will reset itself at the start of the new year. Just stick it out until then. Let your battery die, recharge and reboot tomorrow.



"Early this morning we were alerted by our customers that there was a widespread issue affecting our 2006 model Zune 30GB devices (a large number of which are still actively being used). The technical team jumped on the problem immediately and isolated the issue: a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year. The issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009. We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset tomorrow (noon, GMT). By tomorrow you should allow the battery to fully run out of power before the unit can restart successfully then simply ensure that your device is recharged, then turn it back on. If you’re a Zune Pass subscriber, you may need to sync your device with your PC to refresh the rights to the subscription content you have downloaded to your device."



p.s. I love my Zune and didn't spend half the money you did on accesories. I only bought a docking/charging station with speakers so I could listen to it upstairs. I also bought a charger for the car and that is it! Seriously, do you need all that stuff?

Answer 4

I've had my Zune for about a year and half and until today never had a problem with it. I don't know what you mean about having to arrange all your stuff in it the way you want. I think the menu is well organized and easy to use.