Well, that’s a relief: The beyond-weird worldwide outage of 30GB Microsoft Zune MP3 players has been diagnosed. Microsoft says it’s due to a faulty driver for an unspecified Zune component that doesn’t know how to deal properly with leap years…and that the glitch will resolve itself tomorrow as the new year rolls in. It’ll deploy a fix before the next leap year in 2012 (way, way before, I hope).

I’m not sure what the sentiment is among Zune owners at large, but before the reason for the failure became apparent, Technologizer community member Josh Rose told me “I was initially worried this morning when I saw my device until I noticed everyone else has been having the same problem.  As the day has progressed, my mood has been going towards amused as the full scale of the problem grows ever larger.  I should point out, I love my Zune.  I’m a huge Zune supporter.”

If I were a Zune owner I’d probably be most annoyed over any time I’d wasted trying to troubleshoot my player before learning of the vast number of Zune owners who were affected. Microsoft hasn’t said anything about giving affected customers anything other than thanks for their patience, but wouldn’t it be smart if it through them something–a few free songs or a complimentary month of the Zune Pass music service, maybe–by way of apology?

 
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Read more: Microsoft, Music MP3 Players, Zune