# Large-Scale, Simultaneous Failure of a Product or Technology **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 1, 2009, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-scale-simultaneous-failure-of-a-product-or-technology/479465 "2009-01-01T15:01:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2009, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-scale-simultaneous-failure-of-a-product-or-technology/479465/1 "2009-01-01T15:01:35Z")
[Yesterday, 30GB Zunes (including mine) all over the country crashed.](http://tech.yahoo.com/news/afp/20081231/tc_afp/usmusicinternetzunemicrosoft) Have there been other instances where several thousand (or several million) units of the same product or technology all failed simultaneously? I’m sure it’s happened before, but I can’t think of any specific instances right now. ---
**Author:** ![Glazer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a88e57/32.png) [@Glazer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glazer)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2009, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-scale-simultaneous-failure-of-a-product-or-technology/479465/2 "2009-01-01T15:16:47Z")
Talk about planed obsolescence. **Wow Just Wow.** ---
**Author:** ![Aceospades](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Aceospades](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aceospades)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2009, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-scale-simultaneous-failure-of-a-product-or-technology/479465/3 "2009-01-01T15:44:53Z")
i heard on the news that they were going to start working again at 12:00 midnight newyears. so are they working now? is everything good again. and what caused this to begin with? as for the OP i remember hearind a brand of microwave ovens went on the fritz with Y2K. other than that, maybe one of the big auto recalls might count. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2009, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-scale-simultaneous-failure-of-a-product-or-technology/479465/4 "2009-01-01T15:46:53Z")
> [@Glazer](#): > > Talk about planed obsolescence. **Wow Just Wow.** Well, since it was a boneheaded bug, I think it’s more _unplanned_… ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2009, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-scale-simultaneous-failure-of-a-product-or-technology/479465/5 "2009-01-01T16:23:26Z")
> [@Aceospades](#): > > as for the OP i remember hearind a brand of microwave ovens went on the fritz with Y2K. other than that, maybe one of the big auto recalls might count. Well, but with things like car/appliance/consumer product recalls it’s more of a case of a production point failure that does not necessarily result in simultaneous loss of functionality of every instance of the application – most motorists can drive on w/o going up in flames until they get around to taking the car to the shop for the recall repair. This sort of simultaneity almost requires embedded control technology so it would be something that begins becoming more frequent in the future. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2009, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-scale-simultaneous-failure-of-a-product-or-technology/479465/6 "2009-01-01T22:18:15Z")
It’s maybe not quite what you’re looking for but it’s arguable that the potato blight which caused the famine in Ireland and other countries in the 1840s was an example of this. There was a similar thing with European vines in the 19th century when they all had to be grafted onto American rootstocks. Hopefully we’re not about to see another example with bees. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-scale-simultaneous-failure-of-a-product-or-technology/479465/7 "2009-01-02T03:45:03Z")
I expect that [bananas](http://www.plentymag.com/features/2008/05/bananas.php) may fail before bees, sadly… ---
**Author:** ![mks57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-scale-simultaneous-failure-of-a-product-or-technology/479465/8 "2009-01-02T03:57:36Z")
Leap years have been a big source of bugs for commercial software products, as have clock counter overflows. Usually, the problems get patched or the products are replaced/updated before disaster strikes. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-scale-simultaneous-failure-of-a-product-or-technology/479465/9 "2009-01-02T15:34:13Z")
What exactly happened with the Zunes? Is the cause of the failure known? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-scale-simultaneous-failure-of-a-product-or-technology/479465/10 "2009-01-02T16:38:46Z")
Bug in firmware Microsoft wrote for the Zune: unit incapable of operating on final day of leap year. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-scale-simultaneous-failure-of-a-product-or-technology/479465/11 "2009-01-02T16:55:33Z")
> [@Mr.Slant](#): > > Bug in firmware Microsoft wrote for the Zune: unit incapable of operating on final day of leap year. Yes – the units were first sold in 2006, and obviously whoever wrote the firmware never thought they’d last until the next leap year. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-scale-simultaneous-failure-of-a-product-or-technology/479465/12 "2009-01-02T17:22:19Z")
> [@G. Odoreida](#): > > It’s maybe not quite what you’re looking for but it’s arguable that the potato blight which caused the famine in Ireland and other countries in the 1840s was an example of this. Another such example is the [1970 US corn crop disaster](http://www.victoryseeds.com/information/corn_panic.html), in which the introduction of a single gene, Texas male sterile, rendered corn plants susceptible to infection by \* Helminthosporium maydis\*, Southern corn leaf blight. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-scale-simultaneous-failure-of-a-product-or-technology/479465/13 "2009-01-02T17:33:06Z")
How about the thalidomide disaster? > **[Thalidomide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide)** > > Thalidomide, sold under the brand names Contergan and Thalomid among others, is an oral medication used to treat a number of cancers (e.g. multiple myeloma), graft-versus-host disease, and many skin disorders (e.g. complications of leprosy such as skin lesions). While thalidomide has been used in a number of HIV-associated conditions, such use is associated with increased levels of the virus. > Common side effects include sleepiness, rash, and dizziness. Severe side effects include tumor lysis ... ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-scale-simultaneous-failure-of-a-product-or-technology/479465/14 "2009-01-02T23:47:33Z")
The Distributed Proofreaders website failed for Opera (and some FireFox) browser users on Dec 31st, and started working again at Jan 1st West Coast time (which is what the server runs on). It’s working now, but efforts to trace it down seem to indicate a bug in a commonly used subroutine wget setCookie, which uses a slightly non-standard format for the expires date. And apparently this format gets processed OK by other code, except on the last day of a leap year. So the programmer just called standard subroutines, one of which happens to have a deeply buried bug that only occurs for a few hours out of every 35,064 hours. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that the Zune problem is related to this, too – the description seems similar, and the fact that it fixes itself when everybody has rolled over to the new year.