Many of Microsoft's Zune media

In a statement on the Zune website posted late on Wednesday, the company blamed "a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year," adding: "The issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009." However, a few people were still complaining of problems operating the devices. Microsoft said that the affected users of the 30GB Zune model were not having further problems after fully recharging their devices and powering them on again.

But, by midmorning Thursday, a few people were still complaining on one online Zune forum about their devices not booting up. Most people on the forum said their devices were working, and they encouraged people who were still having problems to be patient and let their devices fully charge before powering them on again (A HREF="http://www.zune.net/en-us/support/zune30.htm" target=blank>http://www.zune.net/en-us/support/zune30.htm).

A day earlier when people turned on the 30GB model, the device would freeze and wouldn't fully boot up, meaning users couldn't play music, videos and games or transfer material between their PCs and the devices.

The problem involved a bug in the model's internal clock driver that was related to how the device handles the extra day during a leap year. Last year was a leap year. When 2008 ended and 2009 began Thursday, the internal clock automatically reset.

The problem did not affect users of other Zune models.