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I use my Zune 30GB daily, but not today, thus far. I was afraid to even try today, but decided it is important to, for you, readers. So, found my Zune also Dead this morning, though it was fine last night. It’s hung now, during boot-up, so doesn’t boot… As I learned on the Net this morning, some bug associated with Dec 31st caused all original 30Gb models to fail.

These devices are firmware upgradable, so lets see how fast can Microsoft not only identify the issue, but actually issue a tested patch for us, poor folks.

Another interesting thing is how fast they heard about it, via the Blogosphere. I am sure people called in Customer Service also, but those Reps on the phone are paid to “repeat the standard troubleshooting procedures”, and no more. As most CS centers go, they are actually encouraged to never escalate issues, so I would be surprised if they, even after hearing so many people call, managed to get the note out to Zune Dev Team that “something was Up”. I will update this post as things develop.

[via Zune Insider] [also via ars technica]

UPDATE: After I read earlier that Apple’s Macs are ready for special “leap-second” year, I thought — probably Zune is affected by that. Well, we now have confirmation from Zune team , and it looks like tomorrow my Zune should be back to normal! I’ll update this post again tomorrow.

UPDATE2: Welcome to 2009, Happy New Year! Quick update – Zune battery ran out yesterday, as planned. This morning I charged it from computer, and it’s back to Life! Working fine, as promised! Hope none of you rushed to break your Zune or do anything crazy to get to battery.

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This is an early report on the new Zune software, since it just came out this Tuesday (two days ago). It is a major overhaul of Zune Firmware as promised, but the Desktop software redesign seems less dramatic.

But, there is a Bug that exceeded my wildest expectation — my cherished Music Library is all messed up now! Seriously, there are some glitches people forgive, but probably not this one. Some artists and their albums are correct, yet others are all mixed up. Wrong Album Art appearing on albums, AND wrong songs appearing inside the albums (just some songs, from other albums, get mixed in with real album songs)!!!

Britney Spears should be most upset, however. It put some of her songs under No Artist category, and slapped Chumbawamba Album Art on them! It really has no excuse for messing up so badly! These Britney’s song are from my personal CD collection, and were ripped using Microsoft’s own Windows Media Player not too long ago! The songs located in proper folder and contain proper MP3 tag information embedded in them (check out the screen shot below).

But maybe, the new Zune software using some sort of advanced Artificial Intelligence to figure out the actual level of artistry behind some specific songs?! Maybe by analyzing the MP3 song itself (finally putting my powerful Quad Core PC to some fine use)?

Nah… It’s just a bug….

UPDATE: Bugs happen! So after posting this and finishing other daily activities, I set out to find a fix. And looks like Microsoft posted it on the day of software release, at 4:55pm on their Zune forums, just scroll down to post by Zmanaaa. I promptly followed their simple instructions and looks like it fixed all of my troubles! The only remaining issue is occasional Album Art confusion. However, I found how to fix that also! Simply navigate to relevant Album directory where the Art is wrong, and Delete album art file, called ZuneAlbumArt.jpg (May be Hidden, so make sure to select Show Hidden Files in Explorer options). Then, Zune promptly redownloads proper Art from it’s Online database, whenever you navigate to that album in Zune desktop software. Voila!

UPDATE2: After doing the database recovery fix above, you will need to Resubscribe to all your podcasts, even though most will appear in the list still. Another thing I had happen, only once though, when unplugging Zune from my Sleeping Vista machine, it didn’t “reactivate”. I had to switch the Key Lock On/Off, before it started responding to any key presses.

UPDATE3: Since at first I didn’t realize I had a problem with my music library, I naturally synched all the mess to Zune. Turns out even after you fix the library, Zune can still have mess “stored” within it. So, I fixed that also yesterday. To fix it, you will need to blow away everything from Zune and “reset” it essentially. Navigate to Settings in the upper right of Zune software, click on Device in the settings, and find Erase All button. Once done, disconnect and reconnect your Zune, and it will re-sync everything down to device (may take a while, but it’s worth it).

UPDATE 12.5 (Nov, 2008): WOW, This post is still as popular as ever, a full YEAR after it was posted. There was another update to Zune software since this post, and mostly everything is so much better now. These workarounds will still likely work for you, though I did not need to try them myself since then. I am still having some issues with Podcasts duplicating, but that is really minor, seriously!

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