Supposedly around midnight P.S.T last night, 30GB Zunes all over the world started to lock up then reboot, freezing at the end of the boot process. It didn’t matter what the Zune was doing, as one user reported his Zune freezing while charging it in his computer.

Microsoft hasn’t issued a comment on the issue yet as the problems started happening early last night, but they are expected to provide an explanation or solution early today. Some theories suggest that the time change with the New Year may have caused the problem, some think it’s a hoax, or maybe even a joke put into the Zune’s software.

The frozen boot doesn’t appear to be affecting Zune’s with firmware prior to the 3.1 release from November.

One member of a Zune forum has suggested that Microsoft provide users with broken Zunes with free Zune Passes which are similar to iTunes Gift Cards. Regardless, this doesn’t help the reputation of the Zune, and hopefully Microsoft can get to the bottom of this strange problem.

Via Gizmodo