MP3 device hit by Year 2000 glitch

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

Apologies if this has been posted.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/CNET/cnet_mp3000105.html

[Fair use/educational purposes]

Minor glitches related to the Year 2000 computer problem continue to pop up as the new year moves on. The latest victims are two MP3 software devices from Visiosonic and Audio Box, which crashed on users just as the new year rolled in.

Users of Visiosonic's PHAT MP3 player were informed by the company that a piece of software associated with the player, called a dynamically linked library (DLL), had expired after the start of the new year. DLLs are collections of Windows files that various applications call on to perform specific tasks.

The company said the file, named slcdrip.dll, had a built-in timer and was set to expire on Jan. 1. The Florida-based company is directing users to download a new file named dllfix.exe to fix the player.

Audio Box's Amps Pro interface software uses a custom algorythm for counting dates, which malfunctioned during the century-date rollover.

"It affected one line of code and only took five minutes to fix and post a patch," said an Audio Box spokesman.

The company has posted a patch on its Web site...

[snip to end]

-- Steve (hartsman@ticon.net), January 06, 2000

Answers

"It's not a Y2K problem," Cantrell said. "It's a 'this system is unacceptable' problem."

-- Beached Whale (beached_whale@hotmail.com), January 06, 2000.

And then there's the Rio that's software is so crappy you'd never know if it had a Y2K problem, and even if you did their support is virtually non-existant. I'd have returned mine if it hadn't been a present :(

-- pilotrn (pilotrn@hawaiian.net), January 07, 2000.

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