Remember all the Year 2000 hype about computer systems all failing at the same time?

It looks like it’s hit the Microsoft Zune – 9 years late.

We’re going to apologize ahead of time to our friends at Microsoft, because we’re bringing the Zunetanic icon out of retirement for this one.

Across the world, Zune 30s have started dying. Here’s how one report describes the situation:

Apparently, around 2:00 AM today, the Zune models either reset, or were already off. Upon when turning on, the thing loads up and… freezes with a full loading bar (as pictured above). I thought my brother was the only one with it, but then it happened to my Zune. Then I checked out the forums and it seems everyone with a 30GB HDD model has had this happen to them.

Microsoft is aware of the Zunepocolypse, dubbed by some as Z2K, but so far has only issued this terse response:

We were made aware of a widespread issue facing owners of Zune 30 devices this morning.  We have a technical team working hard to isolate the issue right now and will update everyone as much as possible.  Thanks for your patience while we get to the bottom of this.

Think heads will roll because of this?

Update: Microsoft has an update: “There is a bug in the internal clock driver causing the 30GB device to improperly handle the last day of a leap year.”

They expect the issue to resolve itself on January 1st:

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.