January 2, 2009 by Matt Thomas
Remember the millennium bug? Didn’t turn out to be that much of a big deal did it? Planes didn’t fall out of the sky, banks didn’t loose account information, basically nothing happened. Well, it appears that some new years software concerns are real. Many users of the Microsoft Zune MP3 player have experienced problems with freezing and hanging as a result of the end of 2008, a leap year. According to message boards, these problems, which began on new years day, are continuing today, despite reassurances from Microsoft that the issues would be resolved by the end of January 1st.
The source of the problem was the device’s internal clock, which began stuttering and becoming confused as it tried to deal with the leap year. Users were advised to take their devices off mains power and allow their frozen players to drain until the battery is exhausted, then they should simply reconnect the devices at some point after noon on the 1st.
According to reactions on message boards there have been mixed results. Man zunes, of course, have reacted just as Microsoft promised, though there are also reports of players remaining frozen, or just shutting down permanently.
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