Long Zune outage coming Monday
A service outage Monday means Zune customers could see this error message for up to 48 hours if they try to connect to the Zune's online store. Microsoft said the outage is for "scheduled maintenance", but declined to say what accounted for the extended time frame.
(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET News)Microsoft warned Zune owners on Friday to prepare for an extended service outage starting Monday.
In an e-mail sent at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Microsoft warned that the outage could last for "up to 48 hours." The e-mail said the outage, which begins at 12:01 a.m. PDT on Monday, is for "scheduled maintenance."
A Microsoft representative would not offer more specifics or say why the outage was for such a long period of time. During the outage, the Zune Social, the Zune.Net forums as well as the Zune Marketplace online store will all be offline, Microsoft said. While the Zune devices themselves won't stop working, many of its features are heavily tied to the service, including its Zune Pass subscription service, new channels feature as well as the ability to stream music over the Internet at certain Wi-Fi hot spots.
"We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause you," Microsoft said. "Please check back soon. We look forward to sharing our picks, plays and recommendations with you."
The outage comes less than two weeks after Microsoft launched the latest version of its player, service and online store.
Update: A Microsoft representative confirmed Friday evening that the "downtime is not related to any security concerns or issues. The company did not immediately say whether it planned to offer any type of credit to Zune Pass subscribers because of the outage.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
If the stress of leaving the "social" is too stressful, the 5 affected Zune owners can still pick up internet enabled, multi-touch capable, gaming iPods and access the iTunes Music Store for a fix of musical goodness.
Yup. My iPod Touch is running the latest version of the OS. How is the multi-touch screen on your Zune holding up?
I would love to hear this one...
Ipod does not have a subscription model
Ipod cannot sync its songs using a wifi connection
Ipod cannot send songs to another player
To get new features you have to buy another Ipod
Zune does not have a scroll wheel and its GUI is completely different
Oh yeah and MS didn't charge its owners for a FIRMWARE update (touch users did)
You were able to create apps and games for the Zune before Ipod came with their app store using XNA in April
Hate on MS for whatever fanboy rant you would like but at least try to know the product you are bashing first...
'Yup. My iPod Touch is running the latest version of the OS. How is the multi-touch screen on your Zune holding up?"
How much did you pay for the latest update? How many times will you have to keep paying Apple to update the firmware on the unit? (I speak from experience as I own a Tocuh but no Zunes. All three of my iPods are not upgradeable as a result without paying for it... if there is even an update. )
Multi-touch- Dell has a laptop out now that supports that on both the touchpad AND the screen itself. It's running Vista. OS X doesn't do that on any Macintosh. Even Surface can do it. Hmm.
They two music players are just that- music players. The Touch isn't a music player though- it's a PDA that also happens to play music. If it was a music player, then those controls would be on the case itself like all dedicated music players are. It's a great PDA though. As a music player, it sucks rocks backwards through a straw.
$10. It was worth it.
"Multi-touch- Dell has a laptop out now that supports that on both the touchpad AND the screen itself."
My MacBook Pro only supports multi-touch on the trackpad. Of course, I don't like anyone touching my screen anyway, so that works well for me. Others might like to keep their arms suspended in mid-air while smudging their screen-- they can buy Dell.
"As a music player, [the touch] sucks rocks backwards through a straw."
Actually, I use it every day as a music player, and traveling I use it as music, movie, email, and everything else. The nicest thing about it as a music player is that you can run Pandora or any number of streaming apps directly from the device, and third parties are adding more all the time. It's like a Zune on steroids, or a Google Phone with 16x the capacity and a headphone jack...
How many of you Fanbois actually own both and speak from real experience? I bet ZERO.
I first owned a RIO500 and used it on PowerMac with Sound Jam. Sound Jam from Cassedy & Green was purchased by Apple and became iTunes. So please, it's not like Apple invented something here. They also do not have the pattent on the interface. Creative does. They sued Apple and won over this very issue. Apple paid them $100 million in a settlement.
So Microsoft worked with Toshiba on the first Zune, based on the Gigabeat. Please explain how this tarnishes what Microsoft is doing with the Zune platform? Is the player supported equally and on par with the current generation? The answer is, yes. So what's your point about the Toshiba model?
The way I see it, Zune offers both pay per song, and subscriptions. iTunes only offers pay per song. More choice is always better than no choice at all.
We have audible, you have audible.
We have video, you have video
We have subscription, you do not
We have per per song, you have pay per song
We have send song to a friend, you don't
We have WiFi sync, you don't
We have channels with self populate new music and subscription users get all those songs at no extra charge. You don't, cause again no subsciption.
We have Mix View, and we can get all the sugestions in mix view. You have Genius, you pay for everything at added cost of you want to have those songs.
As subscribers, we don't have to worry about 30 second previews. We can listen to everything, you cannot.
I honesty don't see how you fanbois have a leg to stand on. The iPod is garbage compared to the Zune. What keeps it going strong is that you have a 5 year lead and brand awareness. That doesn't mean you have the better device.
This is coming from someone with 2 iPhones, both in a drawer now. One my 5th iPod, also in a drawer. And I own both the 80 GB and the 8 GB Zune. And These zunes are fantastic. I believe CNET also rated the Zune as having superior sound quality. Better headhones too. If memory serves me well, they even did a blind test on the street, and the Zune kicked the iPod's butt.
The iPod is a good device, don't get me wrong. As I own an Apple TV so I get it. You can buy a TV show, play it on your TV, move it to your iPod, watch it on your Mac or PC. yeah, all very nice. But that still doesn't make the iPod superior to the Zune. The Zune is the better device. And as Microsoft continues to match, and even surpase Apple service for service, you really don't have anything all that special going for the iPod any more. It did a coiple years ago, but today the iPod is old news. Been there done that. Look at this latest upgrade for the iPod. Boring. Barely anoyone cared at the media event. Yippie, clap clap, is this it? LAME. That's my take on it. The show was a snoozer for losers. I think I could hear the spiders and crickets in that event.
I'll take the Zune. At least Microsoft is giving us features we want and can use. Apple is just the lame dictatorship of non-choice. If Apple wanted your opinion they'd sell it to you with a 37% gross margin. Now that's the true rip off.
Alex Alexzander
Keep it in check dude. Time to relax a bit.
It knocks me over that Mac fanbois look at anything and everything in the Windows world as if it was closed. Wake up gentlemen; your Mac is the most closed system on the planet. Apple even has oversight over what you can buy for your phone! If that doesn't state the very meaning of closed to you, then you need to step back and consider what closed and open actually mean.
Alex Alexzander
http://www.zuneboards.com/zune-news/zune-to-be-down-monday-too-hmmm.html
Except not. Since I can't remember that at all because it didn't happen.
Keep on keepin' on, Microsoft.
Tell me Apple did the same with MobileMe.
and if you have 180gb classic of ipod how much will u spend to fill it up. i can fill zune 120 for $15 only. ipod will cost you thousands. money money money thats apple style
Alex Alexzander
Also, 48 hours is likely overkill. However, like all maintenance windows you always ask for more than you think you could ever possibly use. If something goes horribly wrong you have enough time to fix it and if everything goes according to plan you exceeded expectations.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2000/reskit/part4/c1661.mspx
"High Availability" they said... "Five Nines" they said... nope, not anymore.
(Note that SLAs based on time (as opposed to bandwidth or other metrics) also do not charge you for the time the service is down - for any reason. )
So will Microsoft be discounting the 48 hours that their customers will not be able to use the service they paid for?
I'm thinking "No".
Face it - MSFT blew their own boast. I can say this because even a change in payment system can be rolled out without downtime if it was designed intelligently. Sure, it is likely "overkill" - but 48 hours? Cripes - I can do CM on the entire damned website three times over in 48 hours. Do they even know what CM is?
Bleh. Bunch of pikers.
/P
Face it - YOU blew your own quote.
And the SLAs are often based on refunds or penalties for falling below a certain uptime - outside of scheduled maintenance and other caveats laid out in the SLA. Please refer to http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ws-sla/ particularly the section titled "Exceptions to the rule" Really, go look at one of the SLAs your workplace has signed with someone. I'm sure you'll see things like scheduled maintenance windows and the like in there.
If it takes you 5 times longer to work on MS systems then I would say that is your own personal lack of competency on those platforms. Maybe you still use COBOL? Don't blame your lack of skills on an entire platform. This estimated downtime is to give a worst case scenario. You should know that if you are really an "IT Person", whatever that is.
The fact is that there is a major project at Microsoft that requires "Planned Downtime" and MS is annnouncing it in advance. This very different that unplanned outages where there must be root cause analysis.
Zune and Xbox 360 are about to be intertwined in a way that will compete better with Wii and Sony. It all has to do with a major software upgrade. The fact that this was planned during a weekday is evidence of the maturity in IT Operations at Microsoft as usage is statically down during those times for both Zune and Xbox Live.
Please keep your trolling to the children's table.
Typical Apple Fanbois...
How many of you Fanbois actually own both and speak from real experience? I bet ZERO.
I first owned a RIO500 and used it on PowerMac with Sound Jam. Sound Jam from Cassedy & Green was purchased by Apple and became iTunes. So please, it's not like Apple invented something here. They also do not have the pattent on the interface. Creative does. They sued Apple and won over this very issue. Apple paid them $100 million in a settlement.
So Microsoft worked with Toshiba on the first Zune, based on the Gigabeat. Please explain how this tarnishes what Microsoft is doing with the Zune platform? Is the player supported equally and on par with the current generation? The answer is, yes. So what's your point about the Toshiba model?
The way I see it, Zune offers both pay per song, and subscriptions. iTunes only offers pay per song. More choice is always better than no choice at all.
We have audible, you have audible.
We have video, you have video
We have subscription, you do not
We have per per song, you have pay per song
We have send song to a friend, you don't
We have WiFi sync, you don't
We have channels with self populate new music and subscription users get all those songs at no extra charge. You don't, cause again no subsciption.
We have Mix View, and we can get all the sugestions in mix view. You have Genius, you pay for everything at added cost of you want to have those songs.
As subscribers, we don't have to worry about 30 second previews. We can listen to everything, you cannot.
I honesty don't see how you fanbois have a leg to stand on. The iPod is garbage compared to the Zune. What keeps it going strong is that you have a 5 year lead and brand awareness. That doesn't mean you have the better device.
This is coming from someone with 2 iPhones, both in a drawer now. One my 5th iPod, also in a drawer. And I own both the 80 GB and the 8 GB Zune. And These zunes are fantastic. I believe CNET also rated the Zune as having superior sound quality. Better headhones too. If memory serves me well, they even did a blind test on the street, and the Zune kicked the iPod's butt.
The iPod is a good device, don't get me wrong. As I own an Apple TV so I get it. You can buy a TV show, play it on your TV, move it to your iPod, watch it on your Mac or PC. yeah, all very nice. But that still doesn't make the iPod superior to the Zune. The Zune is the better device. And as Microsoft continues to match, and even surpase Apple service for service, you really don't have anything all that special going for the iPod any more. It did a coiple years ago, but today the iPod is old news. Been there done that. Look at this latest upgrade for the iPod. Boring. Barely anoyone cared at the media event. Yippie, clap clap, is this it? LAME. That's my take on it. The show was a snoozer for losers. I think I could hear the spiders and crickets in that event.
I'll take the Zune. At least Microsoft is giving us features we want and can use. Apple is just the lame dictatorship of non-choice. If Apple wanted your opinion they'd sell it to you with a 37% gross margin.
I have my zune connected to the TV and home theater and I control it with the R.C.. It's my personal Jukebox. If I want to listen something new, I simply download it FROM THE DEVICE!! No PC required!!! Also, I don't feel like a sheep following the followers.
/P
Not saying you're wrong, but having a hard time tracking down this claim... Where did you see this? Was it specific to Live/Zune service?
...and yeah, I do know what I'm doing ;)
"Not saying you're wrong, but having a hard time tracking down this claim... Where did you see this? Was it specific to Live/Zune service?"
Keep in mind that Penguinisto has been touting Microsoft's complete and utter ruin wth each and every press release. Somehow the sky never seems to fall for Penguinisto though. He's just trolling. Just ignore him. He is as harmless as he is clueless.
"...so much for Microsoft's "five nines" boast... *snort*."
Are you SURE you're a professional system administrator? I'm rather surprised you've never heard of maintenance or upgrades.
Ncalishome wrote:
"Not saying you're wrong, but having a hard time tracking down this claim... Where did you see this? Was it specific to Live/Zune service?"
Keep in mind that Penguinisto has been touting Microsoft's complete and utter ruin wth each and every press release. Somehow the sky never seems to fall for Penguinisto though. He's just trolling. Just ignore him. He is as harmless as he is clueless.
"Mitigating the risk and the chance of an unplanned failure is the ultimate goal. In this chapter, you will learn more about the process of creating a highly available system, with a corresponding disaster recovery plan to protect from the worst-case scenario."
It's a planning document. I can't even begin to understand how you reached the conclusion that MS was offering 5 9's on the zune platform from that. I've seen people build strawmen before but really - this is just willful ignorance on your part.
- by ncalishome September 27, 2008 5:47 PM PDT
- Not saying you're wrong, but having a hard time tracking down this claim... Where did you see this? Was it specific to Live/Zune service?
- Like this Reply to this comment
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- by robvme September 28, 2008 9:14 AM PDT
- Xbox Live sent out an announcement, I think two days ago. You can go out to their site and see the planned upgrade for presence and the addition of avatars on XBox LIve.
- Like this
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- by DrtyDogg September 29, 2008 6:21 PM PDT
- He was trying to reply to the FUD Penguinisto was flaming with.
- Like this
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