After Two Years Of M9 Reliability, A Frustrating Evening

[250swb]

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I can't believe this formatting. Does anybody reformat the harddisk after deinstalling programs or deleting files? Why would a card be different?

 

Why would Windows provide utilities for checking a drive for errors, defragmenting a drive, and backing up a drive? Nothing can go wrong, a hard disk is bullet proof isn't it?

 

Steve

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[michali]

I've had my first M9 since Sept 2009 and the second one since March 2010. I've taken the cameras all over Africa, and to Antarctica.

Touch wood I've never had a glitch with either one of the cameras, or SD cards and have never lost a shot..........yet. I use Sandisk 4GB ExtremeIII, 8GB and on long trips I reluctantly use 16GB Extreme 30MB/s cards.

 

FWIW, my standard practice after every day's shooting is:

1. Transfer all images from the camera to the computer or my external drive, with a card reader.

 

2. Reformat the card in-camera prior to use, each and every time. If this is not possible, as the SD card fills up to about 75%, I stash the card and replace with a fresh card, which I again reformat in-camera prior to use.

 

3. Furthermore, I replace the battery with a fresh one the moment the level gets to approx. 30%.

 

It could also be that I've been extremely lucky.....

[jaapv]

I can't believe this formatting. Does anybody reformat the harddisk after deinstalling programs or deleting files? Why would a card be different? I shoot digital since around 1994, starting with a 360 kB Kodak and progressing to models since.I have never formatted a card. I have also never lost an image. For me the "you have to delete in the PC and format in camera" belongs to urban legends. The fault here is most probably the camera.

Kind regards,

Jean

 

Oh yes- I hade the file structure on my (raid array) data harddisks go haywire ten days ago, making them inaccessible. Fortunately I am on Mac And was able to restructure them with Disk Warrior.Mac's Disk Utility had advised me to reformat... I preferred to keep my data.

[adan]

Seems to me there are two parts to this:

 

Battery - the M9 battery indicator drops really fast once it is down to about 20%. I avoid actually using that last 20% and put in a fresh battery once it gets that low. I have had the camera get squirelly a couple of times trying to squeeze out every last amp.

 

It's non-linear - I usually get 300 pix or more out of the first 80% of a battery, and as few as 10 out of the last 20%.

 

Fortunately I found that out using a demo camera the day after the M9 was released.

 

The card-full question:

 

1. I never "delete" pictures if at all possible - and cross my fingers on the rare times that poor planning forces me to do so. I shoot til the card is full (or close enough that I might run out during the next "sequence" - 10-20 pix), and then change to a fresh card.

 

2. I never do ANYTHING to the card except in the camera, whether delete or format (except for transferring new firmware, with a full in-camera format before and after). Messing with the card contents using a separate computer is asking for trouble. Someone may get away with it, but they'll get no sympathy from me when it inevitably rises up to bite them.

 

Using these techniques, I have had about 4 times I've had to pop out the battery in 5 years and 40,000+ pictures-worth of using M8s and M9s. And at least two of those were from letting the battery drop below 15% because I'd forgotten to bring the spare(s).

 

Related, although maybe not a factor in this case - I never, never let the camera "sleep" - except by accident. I turn it on to take pictures; I turn it off any time there is the slightest pause in the picture-taking.

[jaapv]

Interesting advice about going to sleep.. Any particular reason?

[250swb]

And I think some people must have short memories, especially if they have been shooting digital since 1994.......

 

......because I remember with a 32mb card (the height of technology at one time) you can see the number of pictures available reducing each time when they are only deleted but the card not re-formatted. All down to the junk data left on the card and clogging it up. Clearly a 16gb card isn't going to suffer much if the difference eventually goes from 426 to 425 images available, but its still junk data.

 

Steve

[Dolphin]

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Hi,

 

I had the same problem (card is "Full") last week (my M9 is 1 year old). The reason for the failure was the internal card reader of the M9. After an adjustment (or exchange, I don`t know) at CS in Solms everything is fine now.

[jdavidr]

If you're on a Mac, you may want to look into BlueHarvest, a utility to delete invisible sneaky mac files that get put onto inserted disks and can cause device OS's to act wonky.

 

I started using it when I traced hard crashing GPS unit to the .spotlight file that the mac automatically put on the sd card. Completely reformatting the card in the camera would accomplish the same thing, and more.

 

FWIW, except for running blueharvest every time just before I eject the sd cards from the computer I don't do anything fussy. In fact, I routinely violate pretty much all the advice listed so far -- I delete photos in-camera, I don't reformat, I delete all photos after downloading to LR, I swap cards between cameras, I leave the battery to die in the camera, sometimes mid-shot, I let it sleep, I turn it off and on without waiting for the light to stop blinking... I know, I know, I'm livin' on the edge.

 

BUT, I've never (yet) had a problem of ANY sort. The minute I do, I'll probably start being less cavalier.

[erl]

Ah! Living dangerously can be sooo exciting!

Enjoy it while you can.

[sm23221]

What can I do to prevent a recurrence at a critical moment?

You can imagine, from what's posted below, the sequence we could have had...

 

Your best insurance is a backup camera. The same thing happened to me at the most critical moment - I feel for you. Is this Murphy's Law applied or are M9's programmed for this? Hmm...

[jaapv]

It is just as simple to lock your SD card before downloading.

If you're on a Mac, you may want to look into BlueHarvest, a utility to delete invisible sneaky mac files that get put onto inserted disks and can cause device OS's to act wonky.

 

I started using it when I traced hard crashing GPS unit to the .spotlight file that the mac automatically put on the sd card. Completely reformatting the card in the camera would accomplish the same thing, and more.

 

FWIW, except for running blueharvest every time just before I eject the sd cards from the computer I don't do anything fussy. In fact, I routinely violate pretty much all the advice listed so far -- I delete photos in-camera, I don't reformat, I delete all photos after downloading to LR, I swap cards between cameras, I leave the battery to die in the camera, sometimes mid-shot, I let it sleep, I turn it off and on without waiting for the light to stop blinking... I know, I know, I'm livin' on the edge.

 

BUT, I've never (yet) had a problem of ANY sort. The minute I do, I'll probably start being less cavalier.

[k-hawinkler]

If you're on a Mac, you may want to look into BlueHarvest, a utility to delete invisible sneaky mac files that get put onto inserted disks and can cause device OS's to act wonky.

 

I started using it when I traced hard crashing GPS unit to the .spotlight file that the mac automatically put on the sd card. Completely reformatting the card in the camera would accomplish the same thing, and more.

 

FWIW, except for running blueharvest every time just before I eject the sd cards from the computer I don't do anything fussy. In fact, I routinely violate pretty much all the advice listed so far -- I delete photos in-camera, I don't reformat, I delete all photos after downloading to LR, I swap cards between cameras, I leave the battery to die in the camera, sometimes mid-shot, I let it sleep, I turn it off and on without waiting for the light to stop blinking... I know, I know, I'm livin' on the edge.

 

BUT, I've never (yet) had a problem of ANY sort. The minute I do, I'll probably start being less cavalier.

 

 

Thanks for the pointer.

I switched on Show hidden and system files in Tinkertool.

As expected, my memory cards are clean as a whistle.

Then I installed BlueHarvest. When does it its cleanup work? As soon as a memory card is mounted?

 

BTW, do you use M9 camera controls, like zooming into images while images are being stored?

How about storing DNG & JPG Fine while playing with the controls?

 

Thanks again.

 

Best, K-H.

[xrogers]

I can't believe this formatting. Does anybody reformat the harddisk after deinstalling programs or deleting files? Why would a card be different?

 

Hello Jean,

 

The difference here is that with your hard drive, you're always running the same operating system. With your SD card, you let the camera OS manage the card, but you also let the computer OS manage the card---they nearly always manage the card in slightly (usually benignly) different ways.

 

Full interoperability testing between all operating systems and devices that can manage an SD card has never been done. Instead the test typically involves formal or informal checking against some current PCs and/or Macs (which generally reveals the worst incompatibilities), and then relying on bug reports to find any other problems.

 

By formatting in camera and keeping the card in the camera, you follow the pattern of use that always receives by far the most formal test for any SD device. Because it helps so much with bug fixing, all formal testing tends to begin with a specific reproducible setup, and for the SD card, the easiest and most common setup is to format the card in the device.

 

I shoot digital since around 1994, starting with a 360 kB Kodak and progressing to models since.I have never formatted a card. I have also never lost an image. For me the "you have to delete in the PC and format in camera" belongs to urban legends. The fault here is most probably the camera.

Kind regards,

Jean

 

You certainly can do this with great success, especially if you use devices (and computers) that have mature SD support. If the SD firmware is questionable, however, format in camera puts you on the tested path, and can solve some really sticky problems.

 

I'm with you on deleting, I don't hesitate to delete images from my cards. These are easily tested operations for a wide variety of situations. I'm sure I unconsciously avoid, however, deleting while the camera buffer empties. I've done this regularly when testing, but also know that finding errors in simultaneous operations can be exceedingly difficult.

 

Regards,

 

Clyde

[k-hawinkler]

Hello Jean,

 

The difference here is that with your hard drive, you're always running the same operating system. With your SD card, you let the camera OS manage the card, but you also let the computer OS manage the card---they nearly always manage the card in slightly (usually benignly) different ways.

 

Full interoperability testing between all operating systems and devices that can manage an SD card has never been done. Instead the test typically involves formal or informal checking against some current PCs and/or Macs (which generally reveals the worst incompatibilities), and then relying on bug reports to find any other problems.

 

By formatting in camera and keeping the card in the camera, you follow the pattern of use that always receives by far the most formal test for any SD device. Because it helps so much with bug fixing, all formal testing tends to begin with a specific reproducible setup, and for the SD card, the easiest and most common setup is to format the card in the device.

 

 

 

You certainly can do this with great success, especially if you use devices (and computers) that have mature SD support. If the SD firmware is questionable, however, format in camera puts you on the tested path, and can solve some really sticky problems.

 

I'm with you on deleting, I don't hesitate to delete images from my cards. These are easily tested operations for a wide variety of situations. I'm sure I unconsciously avoid, however, deleting while the camera buffer empties. I've done this regularly when testing, but also know that finding errors in simultaneous operations can be exceedingly difficult.

 

Regards,

 

Clyde

 

 

Clyde,

 

Thanks. I think that's a key insight. I wonder what the basic programming scheme is that Leica uses in the M9.

 

BTW, as you know, Apple has for many years supported using the same disk drive sequentially on different Macs running different OSs, or even turning an entire computer temporarily into a target drive to be mounted on another Mac.

It's my favorite method for repairing a system disk.

 

Best, K-H.

[chris_tribble]

Maybe this is irrelevant - but I'd be interested to know if there's any difference between the experience of Windows, Mac and other OS users (eg Linux). I use PC and have had none of these problems. How about others?

[k-hawinkler]

Chris,

 

May I assume, you as an experienced professional photographer focus on your job and probably never use the many features described in the user manual. I very much doubt Mac users are worse off than others with respect to the M9. But I don't know. I suspect it's a red herring. On the other hand, if there were a big difference, it could be a clue.

 

Best, K-H.

[wda]

Maybe this is irrelevant - but I'd be interested to know if there's any difference between the experience of Windows, Mac and other OS users (eg Linux). I use PC and have had none of these problems. How about others?

I use a PC Windows 7 and have been trouble-free until the spurious problem reported in an adjacent thread. The conclusion I draw from further tests is that the Sandisk SDHC 4GB card which worked flawlessly in my M8 will not be used in my M9 in future. So, I have marked a card collection for M9 use. Henceforth I will not mix and match cards between my various digital cameras.

 

In the course of my research I went to the Sandisk official website to find which cards are recommended by Sandisk for the Leica M9. Result: Sandisk do not even list Leica as a potential client! I have emailed their support to find out why.

[adan]

Interesting advice about going to sleep.. Any particular reason?

 

Primarily because I assume the camera is drawing more power when "on" for the 1, 2, 5, or 10 minutes before it goes to sleep, than it does if turned "off" immediately.

 

Evidence: if I want to drain the battery completely for "calibrating" every so often, I set the camera to "never sleep" and just leave it on - and within 4 hours the battery is dead. It doesn't die if I leave the camera sitting around for a week or more with the power switch actually "off."

 

So "on" = battery drain, until it finally falls asleep.

 

(BTW - I don't actually do this anymore, since it appears Li-ion batteries don't need this kind of "calibrating" and it can actually reduce total battery life. Web recommendations are contradictory on the subject, so I've not sure what best practice really is for camera batteries, as opposed to laptop or cellphones. Probably a subject best left for a separate thread.)

 

Secondarily, because back in the era of "M8 Sudden Death," there was something of a correlation between sudden death and people who routinely used the "sleep" mode - at least as I read the posts on the subject back then. Certainly there has been, in my case, a negative correlation. I've avoided letting the camera sleep - and never encountered the full "sudden death" that required Leica servicing.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[k-hawinkler]

Andy,

 

I follow the same practice for two reasons:

 

• Switch on to take picture(s), switch off right away to preserve battery power.

 

• Reduce likelihood of M9 misbehaving by using fewer of its features (until the existing problems have been solved).

 

Best, K-H.

[hydeca]

Write/delete files and reformat the SD card with the M9 ONLY and all will be well.