My Two Randomly Rebooting Zune 8s

[Jason Dunn]

<img hspace="6" border="1" align="left" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/500/zt/auto/1208917179.usr1.jpg" alt="" />I'm planning on writing a geek analysis <a href="http://www.zunethoughts.com/news/show/88199/off-to-the-land-of-the-rising-sun-for-a-vacation-geek-style.html" target="_blank">of the gear that I brought with me to Japan</a>, but there was one Zune-specific problem that I thought was worth writing about here on Zune Thoughts. Specifically, both of the Zune 8s I brought with me were a problem. ;-)<br /><br />On the 11 hour flight from Vancouver to Japan, both my wife and I were listening to our respective Zunes: I had a&nbsp; customized red Zune 8 (Zune Originals) given to me by the Windows Vista team in January 2008, and my wife was using the green Zune 8 sent to me by the Zune team back in November 2007. Two different Zunes, likely manufactured several months apart, and both did exactly the same thing: rebooted randomly while we were listening to music. A single reboot is an excusable glitch; what happened instead was more than a dozen random reboots between the two Zunes over the course of an hour. It got so frustrating for both of us that we stopped listening to music on the Zunes and switched to watching movies on my laptop. It was really frustrating being on a two week vacation full of train rides not having a reliable MP3 player.<br /><br />Upon returning home, I did some investigating, but could only find references to Zune 30s rebooting randomly. The odds of having two Zunes with exactly the same hardware problem would be very low, so I thought perhaps it was my music: I rip my CDs to 256 kbps MP3 using <a href="http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/" target="_blank">EAC</a> and I embed album art inside the MP3 in the form of 600 x 600 JPEGs. I thought perhaps it was something about the header on the MP3 being too big for the Zune to process - I used my Zune 80 on a regular basis, but prior to Japan I rarely used either of the Zune 8s. To test the hypothesis of whether or not my MP3s were the problem, I ripped an album using the Zune desktop software and listened to it - and it rebooted several times over the course of an hour. I wasn't very pleased.<br /><br />At the MVP Summit I asked the Zune team about this, and they said they were aware of the problem and were looking into it. If that sounds rather vague, it is, but I'm hopeful that since they knew about it that means it might get fixed eventually via a firmware update...and that's better than having two defective Zunes!

[David Tucker]

That really sucks...its nothing I've ever run into since I don't rip my music. I know I'd be frustrated as anything on a long trip not having it work.

[jaquintd]

I have the same problem with a red zune 80 original. I was thinking of reformatting the zune's disk but if you guys think it is a software problem I'll probably wait. It reboots usually once within every couple hours...

[Jason Dunn]

I have the same problem with a red zune 80 original.

Hmm - how strange. I use my Zune 80 a fair bit, and I've never had it reboot on me. I guess I should count myself as lucky!

[Jason Dunn]

..its nothing I've ever run into since I don't rip my music.

What do you mean your don't rip your music...do you only use a Zune Pass? Or...?

[David Tucker]

I only use Zune Pass really. I have at most...10 albums maybe? The only songs I know I have on my Zune that I've ripped are some anime soundtracks I've picked up at cons.

That's why an iPod is a worthless brick to me...no subscription means no music. ;)

[Janak Parekh]

At the MVP Summit I asked the Zune team about this, and they said they were aware of the problem and were looking into it. If that sounds rather vague, it is, but I'm hopeful that since they knew about it that means it might get fixed eventually via a firmware update...and that's better than having two defective Zunes! Whoa, wait a second here. Isn't this, like, a really serious problem? Of all the MP3 players I've had, I've probably only had a total of 10-20 reboots in... the last 10 years? I'm even including my old iPAQ h3650+Microdrive setup, which was bulky, clunky as all heck, and had awful battery life. ;)

--janak

[Jason Dunn]

Whoa, wait a second here. Isn't this, like, a really serious problem?

Well, it's a really serious problem for me - to be sure. But I don't think it's very wide-spread because I had a hard time finding people talking about the problem...so it's hard to gauge if I'm just really unlucky with Zunes or what. :rolleyes:

[Rocco Augusto]

This happens to be sometimes with my Zune 30, except it isn't random. The first time it happened was when I was listening to an episode Buzz Out Loud (podcast), when I tried playing the same episode again and it hit them spot where it cut off before it froze and rebooted. After trial and error I realized it was a problem with the MP3 itself and deleting the episode, re-downloading it, and resyncing it to the Zune appeared to fix the problem... Until it happened again a few days later. Not surprisingly, it happened on another episode of Buzz Out Loud again.

It is annoying, but it only appears to happen when I listen to BOL, which is sad because I listen to BOL five days a week :(

[Soundtweaker]

My Zune 80 doesnt reboot but it does randomly shut off usually at least once during a 3 hour timespan.
Some people said it was from static electricity. Hope they get it fixed through firmware.

[cutopia]

I just got one of the red 8 GB zunes about two days ago. It reboots too frequently for my comfort while playing songs (at least once per hour, I haven't kept a close count). The majority of the reboots have been while playing songs from the zune marketplace, but that's what I've played the most so far.

The only thing I found on the zune site was an article saying to update to the latest firmware, etc... but of course mine is already fully up to date.

My husband has a black 8 GB zune that he bought a couple months ago and it has only rebooted once the whole time he's had it and not while playing a song (it happened when he was trying to send a song to me).

So maybe it is the new colors that are bad?

[Jason Dunn]

So maybe it is the new colors that are bad?

I don't think that's quite it either, because one of my Zunes is the original green Zune, and it reboots just as much (if not more) than the red Zune. Hang tight, I know they're looking into this issue...

[cutopia]

Good news for your two Zunes... something I did recently fixed mine.

A new update was apparently just released both for the PC and the Zune firmware. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that was what fixed it because I was in the middle of trying another fix.

So if the firmware update still doesn't fix your Zune's, try this other thing I did:

1. drained the Zune's battery completely
2. plugged it back in to a rear USB port and keep it plugged in until fully charged (battery indicator green)
3. as soon as it regained a wee bit of life while charging, I wiped the whole thing with the key combination (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927001) and reinstalled the fresh firmware

Once it was fully charged, I put my content back on and then left it running the whole night on repeat playing one of my ripped CDs that used to crash it a lot. I have also tried playing the radio a good bit (it used to crash a lot during this too). So far, it's been solid. So I'm going to tentatively say the problem is fixed.