Freescale Driver Issue
At approximately midnight Pacific Standard Time, on December 31, 2008, Zune 30s froze. The problem was caused by a 3rd-party driver written by Freescale for their MC13783 PMIC processor. The bug also froze up Toshiba Gigabeat S media players that share the same Freescale device and driver. The exact cause was first discovered by itsnotabigtruck of Zune Boards. People who experienced the problem gave the event many names, among them Z2K9, Y2K9, Z2K, the Zune Screen of Death, Zunepocalypse, and the December 31st, 2008 Zune Meltdown.
Microsoft posted a comment on the support front page stating the issue is because 2008 is a leap year, and a firmware clock driver used by the Zune 30 improperly handles the last day of a leap year, causing the player to freeze. The driver is for a part used only in the Zune 30 model, which is why the bug didn't affect the other Zune models. The official fix was to drain the device battery and then recharge after midday GMT on 1 January 2009.
Read more about this topic: Zune 30
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