Robert_M Posted July 16, 2011 Share #321 Posted July 16, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) Germany says: ""it seems that the formatting that comes with some of the newest generation cards might be causing the problem. They recommend the following: Format the card with a computer as "Fat 32" standard. Reformat the card in the M9 using Overwrite." Well, I can verify first hand that this does not work for me. This is EXACTLY what I did with a the recent SanDisk Ultra 16 GB card I discussed in detail in posts above. It had a problem within the first dozen frames or so. You should also be forewarned that formating in the M9 with "overwrite" will take you an hour (or more) for a 16GB card (if I remember right). "overwrite" writes to every memory spot, if I understand right. So at 6 MB/s write speed and 16 GB - well you do the math (I have and that is 45 min). BTW, this time is not an M9 speed limitation. It will take you this long in a computer also if you choose to format with an overwrite type method. Anyway, this is another instruction which I put in the "smoke screen" category. Who gave you this instruction? Did it come from Leica or from elsewhere? RM Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted July 16, 2011 Posted July 16, 2011 Hi Robert_M, Take a look here My M9 is eating SD cards [MERGED}. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
k-hawinkler Posted July 16, 2011 Share #322 Posted July 16, 2011 Well, I can verify first hand that this does not work for me. This is EXACTLY what I did with a the recent SanDisk Ultra 16 GB card I discussed in detail in posts above. It had a problem within the first dozen frames or so. You should also be forewarned that formating in the M9 with "overwrite" will take you an hour (or more) for a 16GB card (if I remember right). "overwrite" writes to every memory spot, if I understand right. So at 6 MB/s write speed and 16 GB - well you do the math (I have and that is 45 min). BTW, this time is not an M9 speed limitation. It will take you this long in a computer also if you choose to format with an overwrite type method. Anyway, this is another instruction which I put in the "smoke screen" category. Who gave you this instruction? Did it come from Leica or from elsewhere? RM Robert, I have exactly the same experience. I tried it, didn't make any difference. BTW, the 16 GB Ultra takes more than 30 minutes to format in my Mac PowerBook Pro with writing zeros everywhere. The faster 16 GB cards take less than half that time for the same task. Best, K-H. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
steelduck Posted July 17, 2011 Share #323 Posted July 17, 2011 I wrote Leica about this issue and received the following advice: "One attempt you can do on your own at any time: Please install the camera firmware once more, even if you already have installed the newest one before." I did this a few days ago and I have not seen the problem since, but I have only taken about 20 pictures since. Has anyone with this problem tried the reinstall and still had the problem? OK, the M9 failed me again despite the reload of the firmware... we are in Spain and went for a whale watching trip, which was awesome. We saw dolphins and pilot whales really close (like 2 meters close). The bad part was that my M9 crashed on me with two separate new cards AGAIN. (one Sandisk one Lexar). I could not get the frigging thing to work at all - it was crashing and loosing the pictures with both cards and I did not have any other cards with me. The only good thing was that I was able to video the whole thing when we got to shore - it is now uploading to youtube and I will post it here when it is online. The both cards seem to work just fine on my other camera (Panasonic DMC-FT2) - I tested them both when we got home. I also wrote them full of pictures with my computer and read the files from them successful. I just bought a new 50mm Summilux ASPH and I would really want to have a camera I could trust. I am quite upset about the quality of the M9 software... (My M6 failed it's metering system last week.... sigh) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
steelduck Posted July 17, 2011 Share #324 Posted July 17, 2011 Here is a video of the memory write failure that I have had on several different NEW Lexar Pro 8GB and Sandisk Ultra 8GB cards - all formatted in camera prior use. Leica M9 Memory Write Failure - YouTube Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
k-hawinkler Posted July 17, 2011 Share #325 Posted July 17, 2011 Here is a video of the memory write failure that I have had on several different NEW Lexar Pro 8GB and Sandisk Ultra 8GB cards - all formatted in camera prior use. Leica M9 Memory Write Failure - YouTube steelduck, Thanks for documenting that strange M9 behavior. Exactly the same happened on my M9. After that I took the battery out and back in, got the M9 sort of working again, then the following happened that I could document here http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m9-forum/187415-m9-1-162-firmware-bug-just.html. Best, K-H. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwbell Posted July 17, 2011 Share #326 Posted July 17, 2011 Here is a video of the memory write failure that I have had on several different NEW Lexar Pro 8GB and Sandisk Ultra 8GB cards - all formatted in camera prior use. Leica M9 Memory Write Failure - YouTube Thanks Steelduck, with the exception that I was able to view some of my images via play before the freeze and subsequent crash, and that I don't think I was challenging the buffer too much, this is exactly what happened to me recently as explained in my post in another thread. Missed the ceremony shots because of it. I think "annoyed" would cover it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert_M Posted July 17, 2011 Share #327 Posted July 17, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) Thank you Steelduck for the excellent documentation of the problem. That is the sort of behavior I experienced also with some newer Ultra cards. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chipkahn Posted July 18, 2011 Share #328 Posted July 18, 2011 Followed these instructions...used overwrite...totally screwed now, card made the camera totally inoperative and it will be on the way to Leica in the morning for repair. Something told me not to try their solution and stick with 4GB cards, but nooo, I had to try to use by 8GB Sandisk SD card investment and it was a disaster. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
scrubs Posted July 18, 2011 Share #329 Posted July 18, 2011 Sorry to hear Chipkahn, Putting another card in the camera will make it operable again. (Unless your saying there is some other problem not mentioned before?) I'm not sure whether you will gain anything sending it to Leica at this time since they don't have a solution, you will most likely just be without a camera for a few weeks for them to send it back with 'no problem found'. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
250swb Posted July 18, 2011 Share #330 Posted July 18, 2011 Followed these instructions...used overwrite...totally screwed now, card made the camera totally inoperative and it will be on the way to Leica in the morning for repair. Something told me not to try their solution and stick with 4GB cards, but nooo, I had to try to use by 8GB Sandisk SD card investment and it was a disaster. I don't know who you are listening to, or why, but there is nothing wrong with 4gb, 8gb, or 16gb cards in the M9. If you have a genuine card (not a fake), if you simply format it in the camera (without any additional proceedures, like in the PC first), and you don't insist on pressing PLAY, while the bulk of the buffer is active, then the card will work. If after all these things it still doesn't work there are two outcomes. It could be a faulty card, it could be a faulty camera, it could possibly be both if you are very unlucky. This thread is degenerating into weirdness with tiny bits of unattributable rumour and innuendo, people will be looking to voodoo for an answer next,.... and I think we already have enough headless chickens running around Steve Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted July 18, 2011 Share #331 Posted July 18, 2011 Followed these instructions...used overwrite...totally screwed now, card made the camera totally inoperative and it will be on the way to Leica in the morning for repair. Something told me not to try their solution and stick with 4GB cards, but nooo, I had to try to use by 8GB Sandisk SD card investment and it was a disaster. Did you try another card? And did you allow for the long time "overwrite" takes? I yet have to see the sense of using overwrite on a broken card - it seems a bit of Voodoo to me. A card with problems belongs in the dustbin imo. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwbell Posted July 18, 2011 Share #332 Posted July 18, 2011 I don't know who you are listening to, or why, but there is nothing wrong with 4gb, 8gb, or 16gb cards in the M9. If you have a genuine card (not a fake), if you simply format it in the camera (without any additional proceedures, like in the PC first), and you don't insist on pressing PLAY, while the bulk of the buffer is active, then the card will work. If after all these things it still doesn't work there are two outcomes. It could be a faulty card, it could be a faulty camera, it could possibly be both if you are very unlucky. This thread is degenerating into weirdness with tiny bits of unattributable rumour and innuendo, people will be looking to voodoo for an answer next,.... and I think we already have enough headless chickens running around Steve Steve, I appreciate your sentiment, however your simplistic and only proven for you theories are just as unhelpful as the voodoo you claim to be avoiding. I have done everything "right" and still got a dead camera and lost important images. I didn't "insist on pressing play" (by the way, why should someone not press play? You make it sound like a personal weakness as opposed to something the camera should be able to do out of the box) and it's not a fake card. So I'm left with faulty camera in your simplistic terms I suppose? Not too helpful you see. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
250swb Posted July 18, 2011 Share #333 Posted July 18, 2011 Steve, I appreciate your sentiment, however your simplistic and only proven for you theories are just as unhelpful as the voodoo you claim to be avoiding. I have done everything "right" and still got a dead camera and lost important images. I didn't "insist on pressing play" (by the way, why should someone not press play? You make it sound like a personal weakness as opposed to something the camera should be able to do out of the box) and it's not a fake card. So I'm left with faulty camera in your simplistic terms I suppose? Not too helpful you see. Well, think logically about it. If I were only talking about my camera it can mean only one thing, my camera is exceptional, the best M9 with no faults. Its either that or I am doing something you aren't doing. Of course I'm not only talking about my M9, I'm also talking about the many thousands of M9's out in the world where the owners don't feel obliged to lodge a protest because there regime is working properly. Its about perspective, if somebody's camera exhibits a problem, or the way they appraoch its user maintenance causes a problem, it doesn't mean everybody else's camera does, so finding weird and elaborate ways to make it work is a dead end, if it's not endemic amongst all M9's, it makes no sense to go into all this FAT 32 business. You don't fix a broken engine by pouring more fuel into it. As regards my comment regarding 'insisting on pressing play', well its just a response to the video. I have pressed play while the bulk of the buffer was emptying, the camera locked up. If I only have a couple of pictures in the buffer and press play there isn't a problem. Its happened once, I recognised the problem, saw what I'd done, and didn't do it again. There needs to come a point where instead of blaming Leica the users should just stop banging their heads against the wall, if you know how to lock the camera up, why continue to do it? Steve Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwbell Posted July 18, 2011 Share #334 Posted July 18, 2011 Ok, never mind, I can tell from your tone we're not going to understand each other. My camera exhibited a very real and damaging problem and I lost important images because of it. Others have had that experience too. We'd like to discuss that to try and solve our problem. The "thousands of others who don't feel obliged to lodge a complain", including yourself, don't need to be here commenting I wouldn't think. Kind regards DWBell Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted July 18, 2011 Share #335 Posted July 18, 2011 A modicum of balance is needed. These threads are not private problem-solving threads - they are read by anybody seeking information about the camera. If there are only complaints and no positives, the impression will arise that there are 100% faulty cameras out there, whereas the probability is that it is maybe less than 1 %. Don't get me wrong, for the owner of a problematic camera it is a 100% fault, but it must be said that statistics are different. It comes with the Internet territory. The thing that amazes me is that large amounts of energy are spent on complaining and speculating on the internet and seemingly far less on getting the delinquent cameras sorted by Leica. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwbell Posted July 18, 2011 Share #336 Posted July 18, 2011 As with the red edge issue I had Jaapv, I prefer not to be without the camera for weeks at a time. I only have one. Further, crowd sourcing on this forum is so effective, even Leica themselves do it, so can't all be bad eh? There is a modicum of balance. The thousands of satisfied users are out there happily using their cameras. The few who's don't function as advertised are in here trying to fix it. How is it useful to have users in these threads pipe up with "mine's fine"? As you rightly point out, for me the problem and others is 100%, you telling me there's a balance achieves what for my next shoot? ;-) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted July 18, 2011 Share #337 Posted July 18, 2011 My whole point is - posting here won't fix it - sending it to Leica will. Are you a professional? If you are registered with Leica you will not be without a camera for weeks - you will get a loaner by Leica. Even an amateur will often get a loaner M8 or something if he has a good relationship with his dealer - otherwise it will indeed be without the camera for two to three weeks. In that case the tradeoff must be considered. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwbell Posted July 18, 2011 Share #338 Posted July 18, 2011 Thanks Jaapv, I understood your point. "Posting here won't fix it" would suggest you understand exactly what the problem is though surely? It's a very definitive statement. However if that's not the case, and you don't know exactly what the problem is, then we're presumably free to discuss our individual cases with likeminded forum users? Further, having combined our resources and potentially come up with a repeatable criteria for failure, or even a useable more robust procedure that eliminates the problem, even if that means not pressing play, I would imagine that forum users as a whole would benefit from that knowledge wouldn't they? Which is, I'm guessing, one of the purposes of this forum no? Jappv, out of interest, have you done on your M9 what is done on the crash video? I'm not a pro and I'm on a trip in less than a week. Right now, for me, sending it in for a loaner M8 is not an option. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted July 18, 2011 Share #339 Posted July 18, 2011 I haven't done the Moose Test on my car either... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwbell Posted July 18, 2011 Share #340 Posted July 18, 2011 Luckily there a teams of engineers that do that for you, before the car goes on sale. In fact if it is proven to not pass that test, the car is recalled world wide as it's deemed not fit for purpose. Ask Mercedes. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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