(Most Zune 30s, including mine, became frozen on December 31st, but re-booted back to life on January 1. The problem was a ‘leap year’ bug in a date driver associated with the Zune 30’s freescale processor.)

From the various reports I’ve seen, the problem seems to be occurring for owners who broke the seal on their Zune 30 and unseated the battery. The fix apparently is to reseat the battery, attempt a reboot of the 30 until the battery drains, and then let the Zune 30 sit, unplugged, for 24 hours. Then connect it to a power source (AC adapter or USB connection to a PC). Your Zune 30 should boot up normally.

I don’t think there are many instances of this problem. Almost everyone is our forums had their Zune 30s come back to life automatically on the morning of the 1st. But if yours didn’t, give the above advice a shot and see if that helps!

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I’ve had my white Zune 30 since November 14, 2006 – the first day that Zune players became available.

In those two years, I’ve taken my 30 on numerous car trips, family vacations, camping, hiking, jogging, and snowboarding. I’ve used it less since the Zune 80 and 120 models were released, but it continues to be a tough, reliable old workhorse.

So when it hung up this morning, I was concerned but confident we’d get a fix for it from Microsoft. Even though the Zune 30 has been discontinued, Microsoft continues to show support for Zune 30 owners – and notably made the new advances and features of Zune software 3.0 available to Zune 30 players through firmware updates.

According to Microsoft’s Zune team, my 30GB should arise from the dead at midnight Greenwich time – which is 4am Pacific. So tonight I’m on vigil – and have my alarm set for 3:55am so I can see the recovery for myself.

I’ll report the results then. Any of you that have a life – and are perhaps still celebrating the New Year at that time – can then rest easy. At that time, you’ll either know that all is well again with your trusty old Zune 30s, or… better keep drinking.

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At shortly after midnight last night, thousands of Zune 30s inexplicably froze up. They are currently stuck on the boot-up screen, shown above.

Our forums have been deluged with reports of this, as has Microsoft’s zune.net forums.

We’re awaiting on an official fix from Microsoft, and will report it here as it surfaces.

Some have reported success by letting the battery die and rebooting their 30s. Other less patient, or more adventurous people, have removed and re-inserted their batteries. But others are reporting that the players revert to the frozen start-up screen afterward.

My advice; don’t turn on your Zune 30s until we get a ‘fix’ from Microsoft. A solution is no doubt in the works. Stand by!

Update: my Microsoft MVP contact has emailed me to confirm that the Zune team is attacking the problem. I expect I’ll get further progress updates by email. Will post them here.

Update (2pm Pacific): Getting generally encouraging signs from the Zune team, and they are definitely “on it”. Will post more when I can.

Thanks to gab0 for the pic! And to Bond007 for being the first to report it in our forums.

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