petebw Posted October 28, 2009 Share #1 Posted October 28, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) when I turn on my M8 all I get is the red light at the bottom right of the back screen lighting for about a second or so. No metering, no shutter, no LCD (round) window and none of the menu options will work either. Pressing down the shutter release will again light up the red light as above and make my LCD screen flash for a split second. My battery charger is elsewhere at the moment (about 14000 miles away in fact!) so I can't recharge it until I go get a new one tomorrow but I wonder if anyone can indicate whether this is behaviour indicative of a flat main battery or a fault of some kind? I'm pretty certain my battery had more charge left in it that would be apparent if so. Apologies if this is a bit obvious but I've never experienced it before... :s Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted October 28, 2009 Posted October 28, 2009 Hi petebw, Take a look here Red LED Only. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
swamiji Posted October 28, 2009 Share #2 Posted October 28, 2009 Funny, I had the same symptoms today. One bar on the battery, and then nothing, just a red flashing light on the back. The same light that indicates writing to the SD. I popped in a newly charged battery, and all was well. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mc_k Posted October 29, 2009 Share #3 Posted October 29, 2009 I have drained the battery a couple of times by leaving the camera in a bag with the switch on...and you think nothing was pressing on the shutter button, but that's what must have happened. Hope your problem is something simple like that. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
petebw Posted October 29, 2009 Author Share #4 Posted October 29, 2009 hmm, thanks for the input guys. I'll head to the Leica store today and will follow up here too... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurisu Posted October 29, 2009 Share #5 Posted October 29, 2009 I had the same problem with my M8 with s/w load 2.004; only red LED but no camera respondse whatsoever. I went to the shop and we checked all the obvious things: battery, SD card etc. Even suspected the 'discrete' mode, but this had no effect also. Eventually the camera was send to Leica (twice) for repair. After the first repairs I had the same problems again within weeks. Camera was send again to Leica and the problem seems to be solved. Unfortunately Leica didn't provide information on the repair they made. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
fefe Posted October 29, 2009 Share #6 Posted October 29, 2009 Each time it happened to me it was either solved by poping the battery out and putting it back, or recharging the battery. In 9 out of the 10 cases it needed a battery charge. My batteries tend to drop really fast at the end without much warning. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
petebw Posted October 31, 2009 Author Share #7 Posted October 31, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) so, quick update: I'm still waiting for a new charger (postal strikes...) but I popped over to H.A. Baker's in Lewes today after they kindly offered to charge my battery for a bit for me. As soon as I popped the battery in the M8 came back to life - very happy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ho_co Posted October 31, 2009 Share #8 Posted October 31, 2009 Bravo, Pete! I'm glad it's working. And thanks for letting us know! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trs Posted November 7, 2009 Share #9 Posted November 7, 2009 My hyphothesis after running into this many times since early days right after releasse is that there are set of batteries out there little bit not upto par with quality. These battery in certain condition go down so quick, it can only discharge enough to show the red LED. My guess is my original battery has the problem, but now I can't tell which one. I suppose next time it happens, I would just stop using that battery and see if it reproduces. Only issue is that it is hard to tell since it will like six months before it happens again. It did not occur to me until it happened just recently. Solution for this every time except once has been recharge the battery completely. The once case reinserting back worked after few minutes. Last time it happened, for sure I had two sticks of battery power left just couple of shots before it went on strike mode. Couple shots later, it could not show the preview after the shot. Then, all I get the just red LED when I turn on the camera. As usual, I let it sit for hour or so, still no luck. Then, decided to pop in another battery and it came back to live. Until this time, I did not really think battery could be issue. I am now pretty sure it is somewhat defective battery causing this. Anyway, just sharing my guess, don't for sure it is the case, but sure feels that way with experience I had so far. thanks. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mc_k Posted November 7, 2009 Share #10 Posted November 7, 2009 one should have labeled batteries Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pharyngula Posted November 7, 2009 Share #11 Posted November 7, 2009 I'm a little concerned about this issue. I had exactly the same experience a couple of days ago with a new 8.2. The battery was was fully charged the day before but I did fail to switch to the off position when I put it down for the night (I've been having trouble putting it down;)). The next morning I get the red LED as described but nothing else. Popping battery in and out did nothing. I was a bit concerned at this point but after recharging all was fine again. I wish I had the presence of mind to hook up the hot pins to my multimeter to confirm the battery was dead. I will try that in future if (when) it happens again. I plan to try and experiment to see if I can replicate this but I only have the one battery at the moment and I'd rather shoot than test. I'm getting another battery next week so it will be important to include this in the testing as well. I have the camera set for auto off after 5 min. It clearly states in the manual that auto off is effectively same as switching off in terms of battery drain, etc.. So, if the problem is not a defective battery it must be a defective camera - no? BTW, I have latest firmware installed. Tanka may be right about the batteries but, in my case, the battery in question was near fully charged when left for the night. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trs Posted November 7, 2009 Share #12 Posted November 7, 2009 Good thing about this symptom is it does not happen too often. In my case it is at least six months appart. I stopped trying to reproduce the symptom as I was never able to. But, next time it happens, I'm going to label the battery and see if repeats with same battery or does not matter. But, my hope is it does not happen at all, but often happens when I forget about it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pharyngula Posted November 15, 2009 Share #13 Posted November 15, 2009 Here is an update on my experiences with this issue. I received a second battery from my dealer, charged it fully and placed it in my M8.2 and allowed it to power off on its own. It does not seem to be draining with the new battery in place unlike the situation with the original battery. So, I guess the problem lies with the battery - but it still strikes me as odd that the original battery won't also drain when camera is placed in the "physically off" position. In any event, I'm glad it doesn't point to a camera issue warranting a service visit. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ho_co Posted November 15, 2009 Share #14 Posted November 15, 2009 Thanks for the update; glad it was just the battery! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mc_k Posted November 15, 2009 Share #15 Posted November 15, 2009 P, I got the idea this draining only happened once with the first battery. Before you decide the battery is bad, I would verify that the camera is powering down automatically. After 5 min. or whatever the top display will blank. After the camera powers down, it is necessary to wake it up with a half press of the shutter button. If you forget this, you can panic and think "my switch is on...and my camera is dead !" Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mc_k Posted November 15, 2009 Share #16 Posted November 15, 2009 p.s. thanks for updating, it helps everybody Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pharyngula Posted November 16, 2009 Share #17 Posted November 16, 2009 P, I got the idea this draining only happened once with the first battery. Before you decide the battery is bad, I would verify that the camera is powering down automatically. After 5 min. or whatever the top display will blank. After the camera powers down, it is necessary to wake it up with a half press of the shutter button. If you forget this, you can panic and think "my switch is on...and my camera is dead !" I should have been clearer in my follow-up. The original battery continues to display rapid drain in "auto -off" mode. The new battery is going strong 2 days now in the same mode. I will replace it with the original battery tomorrow and try it once again. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
petebw Posted November 16, 2009 Author Share #18 Posted November 16, 2009 this definitely seems to be a bigger concern than I originally thought. I too bought a second battery and new charger in fact, since then I've not re-experienced the problem thankfully. The old battery seems to last a lot less time than the new one (perhaps to be expected though) but it hasn't jumped from 2 bars to nothing since... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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