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My M9 is eating SD cards [MERGED}


dalippe

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thanks for the help folks.

 

just ordered a handful of 16 gb 45mbs scandisk sdhc's from amazon.

i truly hope i wont ever see another damn line in my images again.

or should i say, i hope i wont have any more crucial frames ruined by that damn line.

 

best

 

jesse

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According to one of the customer reviews ("Freddy") on the B&H Photo site, the 45 MB/s Sandisk "Extreme Pro" cards use a technology called UHS-1. He writes that the only camera that is currently compatible with UHS-1 technology is the Nikon D7000. If he is correct, then this may explain problems with this card in the M9. SanDisk 16GB Extreme Pro SDHC UHS-I Memory SDSDXP1-016G-A75 B&H

 

Just for the record on Sunday, my SanDisk 16GB Extreme Pro 45mb/s, froze the M9, showing the error message "full". I reformatted the card, and still same error message. I also tested the same card in my other M9, and it was also indicating "full" error message in the view finder. I have not had any problems to date, with the other SanDisk 16 GB and 8GB Extreme 30mb/s cards.

Having tested the same reformatted card on both M9's, would suggest in this case it was a card problem, or compatibility issue. For this reason alone, I would not use this card with the M9 for now.

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I have so many ruined images from the damn line, it drives me nuts.

What line? :confused: I haven't seen this, nor heard of a memory card problem that affects only high ISO pics. I remember seeing a line in M8 pics above ISO 650, but I thought that the consensus is that the M9 is usable at ISO 2500.

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For what it is worth, when I bought my M9 in Nov last year, I also bought two Lexar Premium Series 8Gb (SDHC 100x) cards and have never had any hiccups at all. I only reformat them in the camera, using the 'Yes' setting, not 'Overwrite'.

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The M9, at least mine, seems to be VERY sensitive to SD cards. It's the only camera I've ever owned that has a problem with Sandisk cards (whether I've purchased them new just for the M9 or have tried using some of the ones I've successfully used in other cameras). I never cut corners buying these cards, buying from reputable dealers (B&H).

 

If you can believe it, I have only ONE card that works reliably on my M9, and it's a cheap one I bought out of desperation, after a series of failed attempts with my B&H cards, at Costco of all places. When I realized it was working flawlessly on the M9, I went back to purchase the exact same cards and NONE of them worked reliably (some were not recognized, some worked for a while and then the camera would freeze while writing (necessitating battery removal), etc, etc,).

 

And for the record, I did write to Leica, several times. We tried a few things around formatting, both in and out of camera, but to no avail. The Leica folks were very polite but in the end the recommendation was made to send the camera in. Given I'm in Canada, and my nearest service centre is in the US, and there are border considerations around taxes, potential for mishaps etc, and given I use the camera DAILY, I've elected to keep it and use it with my one "magic" (but only 8GB) card.

 

Peter.

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I use a number of brands, from Transcend, Adata, PQI, Kodak, Sandisk, etc. My M9 usually is happy to work with almost anything.

 

I have been having an odd problem, mostly on 8GB and 16GB cards. Some of the files on the card will suddenly become unreadable in the camera. When playing back, it will display "L344828.dng" for example, with a black LCD.

 

The files are then sometimes readable on a card reader, sometimes corrupted. I can also sometimes recover the files with rescue software.

 

There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it, the camera suddenly rejects the files. I can't duplicate the problem, there doesn't seem to be any logical cause that I can discover.

 

Formatting the card again in camera, doing low level format, etc, doesn't seem to make any difference. The problem reappears at random, seemingly.

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This kind of thing tends to happen when the same card is used for different camera types. It also happened on the one and only ever (8Gb Ultra II) which I felt compelled to throw away after it showed this behaviour. On an M8 though.

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... The Leica folks were very polite but in the end the recommendation was made to send the camera in....

 

Peter--

Whatever the problem is, Allendale can fix it.

 

Get a backup of some sort and send the M9 off. Call them first to be sure they're not backed up, and they'll be able to get it back relatively quickly.

 

Sorry for the problem, but I'm beginning to think most people with this kind of kinky behavior are putting up with it like you because they need the camera. I'd say, consider how much more useful it would be if you didn't have to use only that one card!

 

Good luck!

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This kind of thing tends to happen when the same card is used for different camera types. It also happened on the one and only ever (8Gb Ultra II) which I felt compelled to throw away after it showed this behaviour. On an M8 though.

 

Jaap is correct (as usual), when I have had flash cards misbehave, and looked at them with forensic software, I have found control or compression management strings, which could easily result from using and formatting on different cameras. I have also found these on new cards.

 

My practice is when a card is new, or moving to a different camera (which I rarely do, only when a camera is retired), is to format (Fat32) on a computer, then secure erase which overwrites every address on the card with either 000's or a randomized string (use 000's for this purpose, the other if trying to conceal from the KGB ). I then reformat in the compter and again in the new camera.

 

After that, I reformat in-camera before each new use.

 

This sounds more tedious than it is because it is usually done only once per card.

 

It is less tedious than trying to recover files from a corrupted card (usually the card is fine, it is the FAT32 directory that is hosed)

 

Regards .... H

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  • 2 weeks later...
The M9, at least mine, seems to be VERY sensitive to SD cards. It's the only camera I've ever owned that has a problem with Sandisk cards (whether I've purchased them new just for the M9 or have tried using some of the ones I've successfully used in other cameras). I never cut corners buying these cards, buying from reputable dealers (B&H).

 

If you can believe it, I have only ONE card that works reliably on my M9, and it's a cheap one I bought out of desperation, after a series of failed attempts with my B&H cards, at Costco of all places. When I realized it was working flawlessly on the M9, I went back to purchase the exact same cards and NONE of them worked reliably (some were not recognized, some worked for a while and then the camera would freeze while writing (necessitating battery removal), etc, etc,).

 

And for the record, I did write to Leica, several times. We tried a few things around formatting, both in and out of camera, but to no avail. The Leica folks were very polite but in the end the recommendation was made to send the camera in. Given I'm in Canada, and my nearest service centre is in the US, and there are border considerations around taxes, potential for mishaps etc, and given I use the camera DAILY, I've elected to keep it and use it with my one "magic" (but only 8GB) card.

 

Peter.

 

Although I'm not the person who started this thread, I contributed to it with the comments above just over a week ago.

 

Well, I read Harold's and Jaap's comments with interest, and--although I hadn't used my SD cards in other cameras--I decided to revisit formatting them.

 

I placed them in my iMac desktop and did two things:

 

 

  1. I formatted them using Apple's disk utility application, selecting the option of replacing all of the data with 0000 (this took a few hours for all of the cards).
  2. I then removed the cards and re-formatted them in the M9 -- just the quick format, not the secure one.

 

I am happy to report that in the past week my M9 and SD cards have been getting along beautifully.

 

I wanted to write this update in case there are others that are experiencing difficulties and to set the record straight... leaving my original comments above without this update would be misleading (and potentially damaging to Leica's reputation).

 

Thank you dear Forum, for being so helpful!

 

Peter.

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  • 1 month later...

Well, just to update my update...

 

It's been over a month now and I am sorry to report that the M9 occasionally continues to freeze when writing to the card, and I occasionally lose images, despite doing what I reported above.

 

Perhaps it's just my M9, but there's something screwy going on. Having followed the various posts here, it looks like my experience is not unique. I don't think it's good enough to blame the end-user, as I am sometimes reading.

 

I hope Leica is looking into this.

 

Despite the problems, I exclusively use an M9 now for all my shooting.... I just can't part with the image quality.

 

Peter.

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  • 1 month later...

What, literally eating them? As in they go in one day and there's nothing there the next? Crikey! :D

 

There's quite some talk in the "M9 in the field" thread about the sensitivity of the M9 to different makes of card. I forget the outcome but there's clear recommendations on which cards to use from Leica in that thread. If those cards get eaten up then send it in for a look.

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My specialty - toothmarks on SD cards. :D Feed your camera a CF card a day and it wont touch the SD cards...;)

 

First some questions - assuming you mean you lose cards through card failure:

What cards - real? counterfeit? What type, what size?

How do you use them - do you delete or format in the computer? Do you use a card reader? Do you delete format in the camera? Do you switch cards between camera types/brands?

Do you keep them in their little box when not in use? Do you have a habit of touching the contacts with your fingers? etc....

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My specialty - toothmarks on SD cards. :D Feed your camera a CF card a day and it wont touch the SD cards...;)

 

First some questions - assuming you mean you lose cards through card failure:

What cards - real? counterfeit? What type, what size?

How do you use them - do you delete or format in the computer? Do you use a card reader? Do you delete format in the camera? Do you switch cards between camera types/brands?

Do you keep them in their little box when not in use? Do you have a habit of touching the contacts with your fingers? etc....

 

Sorry for maybe a minimal problem description.

 

I use a macbook pro, with SD card reader. Usually work with only one card and one backup card well sealed in the camera bag.

 

First one had a card failure. 40 pictures on the card, but i've taken 120. The last two (after a month or two usage) couldn't the M9 recognize. It was the warning No SD card in the camera.

 

The cards where:

* Sandisk 8GB

* Lexar 8 GB

* Kingston 8 GB

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Yes. But if they start out working ok, fail, the new one starts out working fine, fails, etc... it suggests that something untoward is happening to the cards that cannot be explained by a faulty camera. It can be something totally unexpected, like storing your cards on top of a loudspeaker for instance( just an example, not saying you do)

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