Zune 30 v2.2 Battery Drain/Reset Problem???

[LPD]

Yesterday I installed the new firmware on my Zune 30. It worked perfectly. I was able to sync wirelessly. My Zune is about a year old and the battery life has been just fine. Last night it was fully charged.

This morning I went to turn on my Zune but nothing happened. No screen, nothing, until finally a large battery icon with an exclamation mark ! in the middle briefly appeared. I assume it was in a deep discharge state. I connected it to the PC and still nothing. A few minutes latter it finally connected. Then I disconnected it; it showed a full battery icon. It appears to be working now.

Has anyone else had this problem after the firmware upgrade?

[Jason Dunn]

Huh. Crazy - my Zune 30 has been powered up/down at least a dozen times since I upgraded the firmware, and it's still got a full battery - and I've never seen that problem. Hopefully that's an isolated incident - have you tried doing a soft reboot?

[LPD]

So far the problem has not returned. The Zune 30 seems to be working well. If the problem returns I'll post another update.

[cjhp]

Jason,
I am having this issue on my zune30. I power down my Zune by holding down the pause button to place the zune in the sleep mode. I have notice since updating it to the 2.2 firmware that my battery life is crap...

I let my zune charge up for 6 hours the other night by connecting to my laptop they way I have done for the last 6 months and got the green battery icon on the zune. I then unplugged it and plugged back in as I was planning a long car trip the next day. Checked it before going to bed and it had another green plugged.

Got in the car the next day went to power on my Zune and got the black screen with the battery icon with the ! in the center. It wouldn't do anything from this point. I was rather ticked off since I even downloaded a few new albums from the marketplace that I was looking forward to listening too...

I looked in the zune.net support forums and there are a number of people with the same issues. No response in the forums that I could find from MS. Jason can you make some calls or emails to your contacts to find out anything about this???

Some were suggesting to do the full power down of the Zune but I haven't tried this but again I never did this prior to the firmware upgrade and never had this problem.

Any help here would be greatly appreciated. As my zune has become useless. I will try and call the support line tomorrow or Wednesday as I am currently on business trip and had to leave my trusty companion at home because I thought at first that is was an issue with my zune...

Thanks J...

[serpico]

I was reading this morning on gizmodo or engadget about this issue. But most comments of users were they had no problems. Could be isolated. But odd that today this all came up. Was there a firmware update today? I only read that ipods had an update today. My zune30 is ok. I actually did the 'back +down' buttons process to make sure mine shuts down.

[Jason Dunn]

I looked in the zune.net support forums and there are a number of people with the same issues. No response in the forums that I could find from MS. Jason can you make some calls or emails to your contacts to find out anything about this???

I wish I had a magic bullet, but I don't - was tech support any help? It seems strange that your Zune would work fine previously, but with the new ROM suddenly have problems with the battery life. I haven't used my Zune 30 with the ROM enough, but if it doesn't happen on all Zune 30 hardware, it makes me think there's something wrong with just those Zunes...it's rather puzzling.

[cjhp]

Jason,
I agree with you to a point but it seems really odd that I was using my zune the exact same way as I did before the firmware upgrade and then right after upgrading I no longer get any battery life if I do the pause/hibernate option. I haven't called tech support yet but plan to try tomorrow or Friday. I did charge the zune again today all day and check the USB port to verify that it is getting the 500mA required to charge it. All check out. But then I forgot the zune on my desk as I left in a hurry. I will know for sure if it has the same problem because it will be dead in the morning if it holds true. One thing I would like to try is downgrading the software and firmware. I seem to recall that you said you saved this software. Did you publish the link to the previous software? I am wondering if the recalibration argument might hold some weight because I hooked my zune up this morning and it showed dead then charged it for about 10 minutes. It barely showed any battery level at all. Then I unhooked the device and played a 2 1/2 hours of video podcasts before the device died completly again. Then I recharged it for the rest of the day. I will let you know what happens in the morning.

Thanks J...

[Jason Dunn]

I agree with you to a point but it seems really odd that I was using my zune the exact same way as I did before the firmware upgrade and then right after upgrading I no longer get any battery life if I do the pause/hibernate option.

Indeed, it does seem strange. I'm going to do a test with my Zune 30 tonight, we'll see what happens to the battery.

One thing I would like to try is downgrading the software and firmware. I seem to recall that you said you saved this software. Did you publish the link to the previous software?

I did save a copy of the 1.x software, but the firmware was never a separate file - so I doubt if you connect your new Zune 30 with the 2.x firmware it would down-grade the firmware. I think you're "stuck".

[LPD]

Here is an update on zTunes (my Zune 30). Twice in the last week zTunes' battery was dead. I turned off wireless and it was fully charged. Turned it on a day later and nothing. Plugged it in and got the battery icon with ! in the middle.

I just called technical support which was no help. They had me do a simple reset (Hold Back + Up). Since it is out of warrenty the suggested I might want to spend $110 to extend the warrently for a year. I'm not going to do that since it was working fine until the firmware update.

I'm going to see what it does the next couple of days. If the problem is not gone I'll try a hard reset (Hold Back + Up; then immediately on restart hold Back+Left+Center) which will erase everything from my Zune.

[serpico]

Could be the same issue that's creating this bug when disconnecting from the xbox360. Mine does it after 10 seconds of playing music.

Let us know on your battery results after the reset.