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Officially, we all heard that the Zune Marketplace, and the grandfathered Zune Pass, was going to be shut down many months ago. Of course, those of us who were fans of the service weren't happy. Well, whether out of incompetence or benevolence (I'm hoping it was the latter), at least on my end, both of these lasted significantly longer. I was still getting my free 10 mp3's as late as January. Sadly, I was only able to redeem 7 of those 10 credits before it mysteriously stopped working, but it was in time to the get the last David Bowie album, so I'm not complaining. Still, the Zune Marketplace, reduced to merely its function of providing DRM-protected content you could sync with your Zune, still worked. And worked. And worked. I was beginning to think that perhaps the better angels of Microsoft's conscience prevailed, and those of us with Zune Pass, err, Xbox, err, Groove Passes would still be able to download unlimited content for our PC's and Zune devices. Tonight, April 27, 2016, that officially ended.
My Zune software had what I thought was a glitch. It shut down, and I was offered the choice of getting it debugged. But when I restarted the software, I noticed two changes. First, when you right click artists or albums, you no longer have the option of being taken to where that content is on the Zune Marketplace. Instead, it says (for example), "More about the Flaming Lips ONLINE." Clicking those links just brings you to the Groove homepage, and an offer to sign up. It doesn't matter what artist or album: every time, the link is to the Groove homepage, even if you're signed in, nothing specific to those artists.
And the worst of all: just like the Zune Social, the Zune Marketplace text at the top of the software is gone. Your options are now limited to Quickplay, Collection, and Device. Now, I still have a lot of stuff I've downloaded from the Marketplace on my PC and in my Zune device. I don't know what will happen with that. It still plays for now, I'm noticing. Though as a test, I tried to see if one track that hadn't been synced would still do so. No... A message about needing to check usage rights, and to sign on with a Zune Music Pass. When you right click on Zune Pass content, the DRM now says... "Unknown," when it used to offer more specifics about being usable for at least another month. We'll see what happens with what's still on the device. At the very least, as of now, all Zune Marketplace DRM-protected downloads still play in the software.
So... I'm disappointed to see the Zune Marketplace go. I have nothing against Groove... I've played around with it, both on my PC and my phone, but I don't think it's quite for me. The whole point of having music stored locally was that I wouldn't need to remained tethered to a network at all times. Plus, the best thing about the Zune player was its ability to shuffle. A lot of my music isn't available in Groove, so even with a shuffle function on Groove, I'd have to exclude a lot from my collection. I have some time to decide, I suppose. In any event, I suppose I'm lucky that I've been able to get this much functionality out of Zune, years after its death was declared. Even if it's now just a media player, that's fine, because it means I can listen to my massive music collection and podcasts without having to worry about dataplans and cellular access. As for the Zune Marketplace, it's been great having you. Checking out new music will be trickier now.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
If you're creating a new account, wouldn't you have to pay for a new Zune/Xbox/Groove Pass?
No - because (as I said) it's a new account ON YOUR PC, not a new signup for the Zune service. You're accessing exactly the same Zune account from the new PC account.
Simply change your PC username (that you use to sign in to Windows) from Dave to Eric or Stan etc. and run the Zune software from the new PC login.
I see... Well, I'm game to try it. However, I suspect that we may now be too late. I don't know if this is what I think it is, but I noticed this afternoon, my PC's Zune software wasn't able to log in my ID. At all. Specifically, I got this message: "A secure channel couldn't be established. The server certificate name doesn't match the server address."
Here's what I fear this may mean. Yes, the Marketplace is being killed off. But the software would still log in to verify the user's status as a Zune/Xbox/Groove Pass holder. This would still be important if you still have Zune Pass content on your PC, or if you have older DRM'ed WMA's you may have purchased back in the day. I think the way this works is, if your Zune software doesn't log in within a certain period of time, any DRM content you have on your machine, whether Zune Pass downloads, or legitimately purchased WMA's with DRM, will cease to play. As it is, I've already noticed that Zune Pass content that was unsynced prior to the Zune Marketplace shut down generally no longer syncs to your Zune device. (Oddly, there were a few exceptions, but that's mostly what's happened for me. So - no more syncing. Only plain jane non-DRM mp3's, wma's, and m4a's at this point will sync.) This content will still play from your software though. So the thing I'm kind of afraid of here is that this may be the beginning of the countdown that ultimately renders all our Zune Pass/DRM-WMA's useless.
Or, it could just be a software glitch that's giving it some login difficulties. But you'd see why one might worry about such a thing. Has anyone else discovered that their Zune software is having login issues, perhaps getting the very same error message I mentioned above?
Well I decided today to try just that: I'm going to cancel my subscription and see what happens to my thousands of Zune Pass songs. I just couldn't justify paying $10/month to keep up, but not add to, my collection of music from the past.
When it started out, and I too was an early adopter, Zune Music Pass was the best deal out there, and I took advantage of the free 10 songs/month, but I find that I rarely use Groove now to stream music. There are many and mostly better streaming services out there and are free.
So I'll let you know if in the next month my music becomes unplayable.
My zune pass music stopped playing yesterday on my computer :'(
Already? Well, I suppose it has been a month or so... Did you officially end your Zune Pass? That content still seems to play for me, at least for now. But I will tell you, I've spent a lot of the last month trying to liquidate as much of that stuff as possible. In some cases, this means deleting stuff I couldn't possibly ever see myself wanting so badly that I'd spend extra money for it. In other cases, this has meant getting around to buying stuff I should have bought ages ago, like the Langley Schools Music Project album. All in all, I estimate that I've gotten rid of half of that stuff so far, so roughly 1400 singles and albums down to 700?
FWIW, the sign-in issue I mentioned above seemed to resolve itself, with no real effort on my part. It seems that it really was a glitch after all. My Zune software now automatically logs in as it always did, and the Zune Pass content still works... at least, as I said, for now. But I expect that it won't last much longer.
