Sometimes My Zune Just Won't Turn On

[Jason Dunn]

I've read scattered reports about this online, but the problem is now personal: remember that black Zune that I gave away? Well, that same week I received a white review unit from Microsoft, and was allowed to keep the unit. I knew about the review unit back in November, which is why I (thankfully) only had to buy one Zune for myself rather than two. I need two for testing sharing features. At any rate, the winner of the black Zune was offered his choice of the brand new black or brand new white Zune, and he picked the white one. Lucky for him, because the black Zune is screwed up.

I just started using it a couple of days ago, and I've noticed a very consistent problem: it won't turn on. This morning I tried to turn it on by pressing and holding the Play/Pause button. Nothing happened. Then, about 60 seconds later, it turns on coming out of a full reboot. What's most curious about this is that I can put the black Zune into sleep mode, and it will turn on correctly. I can put it into suspend mode (by holding down Play/Pause) and it will turn on correctly - sometimes. I was just testing this again and it won't turn on for me now at all. If I try forcing a reset, the third or fourth time it will work. Not cool at all - is anyone else seeing similar behaviour with their Zune? I'm dreading calling tech support, because with my luck they won't do anything for me because I'm in Canada.

[Jason Dunn]

I've read scattered reports about this online, but the problem is now personal: remember that black Zune that I gave away? Well, that same week I received a white review unit from Microsoft, and was allowed to keep the unit. I knew about the review unit back in November, which is why I (thankfully) only had to buy one Zune for myself rather than two. I need two for testing sharing features. At any rate, the winner of the black Zune was offered his choice of the brand new black or brand new white Zune, and he picked the white one. Lucky for him, because the black Zune is screwed up.

I just started using it a couple of days ago, and I've noticed a very consistent problem: it won't turn on. This morning I tried to turn it on by pressing and holding the Play/Pause button. Nothing happened. Then, about 60 seconds later, it turns on coming out of a full reboot. What's most curious about this is that I can put the black Zune into sleep mode, and it will turn on correctly. I can put it into suspend mode (by holding down Play/Pause) and it will turn on correctly - sometimes. I was just testing this again and it won't turn on for me now at all. If I try forcing a reset, the third or fourth time it will work. Not cool at all - is anyone else seeing similar behaviour with their Zune? I'm dreading calling tech support, because with my luck they won't do anything for me because I'm in Canada.

[velvet elvis]

mine does that sometimes also... really kinda sucks

[David Tucker]

The problem is it wasn't designed to operate in Canada

[cdavis1962]

Yes I have a black zune that I got on the first day, and true enough my zune zoned out.... I thought maybe the firmware update would help, but just yesterday in the car in the middle of a long mix, it went out only to return after 30 minutes of trying different things. I thought it was just a static thing. I still like my zune though when it works it's awesome.

[Crystal3]

I have the problem intermittently with mine too.

[sigur]

I have a brown zune with same minor problem . BTH, from canada too

[LPD]

Thankfully my Zune has not had that problem. If I had to quess, its a faulty contact inside the play button. If any of you having the problem call Microsoft technical support I'd really like it if you posted how the call went and if they will replace your Zune. They should, its under warrenty. It would be interesting to see how good the support is. That might make a good forum topic area - Zune Support Experiences.

[NPrtmn4evr]

The same thing has happened to me once or twice. It's not a common problem, but I freak out when it happens. At least I know it's not just mine.

[SuperRR]

I have also had that problem about 4 or 5 times and ironically... I have a black zune.
It went out and I tried every button and combinations, then suddenly, as with you, it turned on and started playing. I would like to add that when I first opened up the zune and turned it on it had the HD crash issue where it had to delete everything.

I'm not really seeing much happening when it comes to techinal support because overall it still works fine, just a little hick-up that I'm sure will get the response, "There is nothing we can do right now, but a software update will be comming soon to solve the problem, Thank you."

[parabolee]

I'm having the same problem. In factr I found this site while trying to figure out what the problem was, I thought maybe I was just trying to turn it on incorrectly.

Most of the time it works perfect. But every now and then it will just not turn on for 20 seconds no matter what I press. And then all of a sudden it come on with the logo and progress bar and works perfectly again.

What sucks is that it usually loses my place in the media file I was playing, so if I'm 40 minutes into a podcast I have to skip forward into the track. Would love to hear if anyone finds a fix for this to save us all calling tech support.