SD Card Tests with and without M9

[jaapv]

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You don't have to estimate the temperature - it can be read out from EXIF. Come to think of it, most of the data in this sheet are recorded in EXIF. And more precisely. Just take one shot and attach the EXIF file instead of going to great lengths trying to think of everyrthing....

And why would you x out the last two digits of the serial number? It is not like it comes under the Official Secrets Act.

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Come to think of it, most of the data in this sheet are recorded in EXIF. And more precisely. Just take one shot and attach the EXIF file instead of going to great lengths trying to think of everyrthing....

 

That kind of defeats the purpose in the case when you actually encounter the problem you are trying to track. No picture gets written in that case and no EXIF will be present.

 

And why would you x out the last two digits of the serial number? It is not like it comes under the Official Secrets Act.

 

Some owners do not feel comfortable when a particular camera can be tracked to them, i.e. after they sold it. We presume, of course, that no one performs those tests with a stolen camera.

[jaapv]

That kind of defeats the purpose in the case when you actually encounter the problem you are trying to track. No picture gets written in that case and no EXIF will be present.

Just take the last image before the problem.

In the example above the images are present on the card, so that is not a problem

 

 

 

Some owners do not feel comfortable when a particular camera can be tracked to them, i.e. after they sold it. We presume, of course, that no one performs those tests with a stolen camera.

Tracked back to an anonymous Internet Forum handle?

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..Tracked back to an anonymous Internet Forum handle?

 

Most members are not half as anonymous as would seem at first. For instance, I would recognize you anywhere by sight alone from your profile image.

 

However, that's a side track.

[jaapv]

Only if I hold a phone

[k-hawinkler]

 

I seriously believe that you are wasting your time here

 

 

Only if Leica is unable to correct the problems in the M9 - which I believe you are not an owner of. Sorry if I am mistaken about the last part.

 

Best, K-H.

[t024484]

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I don't want to frustrate anybody, or spoil somebodys enthousiasm, but this is not like finding a needle in a haystack, but more like a molecule in a haystack since you have no idea what's under the hood.

I share Andys and Jaaps vision that it makes hardly any sense now Leica has been informed and is well aware that there are issues to be solved.

 

What we know is:

With a limited amout of cameras intermittent problems occur with images that get lost, with images that are corrupted and with cameras that keep hanging sometimes.

The majority of cameras however seem to be free from this annoying behaviour.

 

What we do not know is:

1) Is the cause of this all just one problem or is there more then one problem or even an unfortunate combination of problems.

2) Has it to do with the interface to the SD card, and if yes is the reading from or the writing to the cause and why.

3) Or is it a problem somewhere earlier in the long chain from digitizing to writing that causes all processes thereafter to losing track resulting in destroyed images or hanging cameras.

 

This like trying to find the cause why your car is sometimes leaking oil when you are not allowed to look under the hood.

 

 

Hans

[andybarton]

Only if Leica is unable to correct the problems in the M9 - which I believe you are not an owner of. Sorry if I am mistaken about the last part.

 

Best, K-H.

 

Ownership is completely irrelevant and frankly I dont know what you implying by that. I don't need to own one to know when someone may be wasting their time.

 

Wait for Leica to ask for information.

 

The Sticky thread at the top of this sub-forum explains what has been discussed with Leica.

[k-hawinkler]

The majority of cameras however seem to be free from this annoying behaviour.

 

 

Apparently so. However, nobody knows for sure why is that?

Is it because those M9s are perfect?

Or is it that those M9s are only exercised with a subset of funtiomality that doesn't cause malfunctions?

 

What makes this such a tough issue is the intermittency of the problem.

 

Best, K-H.

[k-hawinkler]

Although the M9 is plagued by intermittent failures, we have finally produced a case in which the M9 SD functionality seems to fail reliably on demand.

 

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/1787603-post92.html

 

That's incredibly advantageous as it offers the opportunity for a focused investigation.

I would be dumbfounded if Leica didn't take advantage of this.

I am positive they will.

 

That's real progress. Robert, many thanks for leading the way on that issue.

 

Best, K-H.

[jaapv]

I would not be dumbfounded either way as the relevance of this test is completely unclearI would like to see it repeted with other cards an why does Windows see the card and Mac not? It indicates an area to be investigated nothing more IMO.

[UliWer]

Some days ago I tried, what happened when I made 7 shots in C-mode, 1/4000,DNG-compressed and jpg-fine. During the time when the red light was blinking, I pressed "Play" several times and shut the camera off, when the red light was still going on. After I had shut off the camera the red light went on for an unusual long time. After it stopped, I could switch on the camera and all 7 files where there - not only on the camera's preview but also on my my computer with full size files.

 

Today I tried again with a new card Transcend SDHC, 16GB, Class 10, which came right out of the wrapper and was never used before.

It looked well in the Mac OSX 10.7 disk utility before formatting it in the M9 and afterwards

 

Then I tried again: 7 shots in C-mode, 1/4000. This time only DNG compressed, because I forget about the jpg-fine. During the time when the red light was blinking I pressed "play" several times, zooming, going back and forwards, shutting the camera off, on and off again. This time the blinking stopped shortly after the second switch off. The camera didn't want to react at first, though went on after a few movements of the switch.

 

I got the message: "No SD-Card" on the display. When I pressed "play", all 7 files were on the preview.

 

When I put it in the card reader it would not mount. After trying a few times again, it mounted, but went off again. Tried again, mounted. Disk utility couldn't test the volume.

 

I tried to import the "files" to C1: I had only two previews in C1 with no photos but only interrogation marks.

 

I applied "volume repair" in disk utility. After some stuttering it worked.

 

Tried the same procedure in the camera again without formatting the card in the M9: heavy playing around, going fore- and backwards, zooming, switching on and off during the times,

when the red light was still blinking. After I switched off for the second time it took long until the blinking went out. I could restart the camera immediately, no message. I had seven files again in the preview.

 

When I tried to mount it over the card reader, I had no results. Tried two other card readers, no success. The card will not mount.

 

I reformatted the card in the M9, simple mode, no overwriting. Made 7 shots in C-mode, no p experimenting during the red light's blinking. The card mounted immediately in the card reader. All seven files have their full size of 18.3 Mb; they import without problems in C1.

 

My advise would be: take your time until the red light is off before you start to do anything. It's not in the manual that you should not, that's right. I never found anything in any computer manual that you should not try to open a file until it's fully downloaded, or that you shouldn't shut off your comp when you are burning a DVD.

[k-hawinkler]

UliWer,

 

Many thanks for describing that episode and the lessons you inferred from it.

I personally greatly appreciate you report.

 

Howard said it best: http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/1777607-post455.html

 

Vielen Dank, mit freundlichen Gruessen, K-H.

[andybarton]

I reformatted the card in the M9, simple mode, no overwriting. Made 7 shots in C-mode, no p experimenting during the red light's blinking. The card mounted immediately in the card reader. All seven files have their full size of 18.3 Mb; they import without problems in C1.

 

What I have learned from this is that if you let the camera finish what it's doing, it does it properly.

[k-hawinkler]

My conclusion: Leica needs to make the M9 user interface bulletproof so that inappropriate and sometimes inadvertent user actions don't lead to unintended negative consequences.

 

For the time being, by now, I know already quite a few workarounds that permit me to enjoy taking pictures with the M9 whenever I want.

 

K-H.

[bocaburger]

What I have learned from this is that if you let the camera finish what it's doing, it does it properly.

 

Ok, but am I the only one who feels that write times are significantly longer with the new firmware? I'm using the same (2GB non-HC) cards and shooting compressed dng as before, and if I wait till the red light stops blinking before taking the next shot it seems to remain blinking at least twice as long after each shot as it did before the update.

[bill]

My conclusion: Leica needs to make the M9 user interface bulletproof so that inappropriate and sometimes inadvertent user actions don't lead to unintended negative consequences.

 

Forgive me for I have not read the entire thread but this seems to me akin to expecting soup manufacturers to sell teflon suits with every can. Since the dawn of time products have been made that are foolproof but not idiot proof.

 

Fact is "inappropriate and sometimes inadvertent user actions" - also known as "shit" - happens. Do stupid things and stupid things happen. Open a film back before rewinding and your film will be ruined. This appears no different. I never expected Leica to think for me and I don't now.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

[Robert_M]

K-H,

 

Regarding the last set of test I reported and you repeated in the post at

 

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-...03-post92.html

 

I forgot to mention that I also tried and succeeded in formatting the testing card (after I revived it) in the M9 with overwrite mode. Worked fine. However, since the card was already full of 0 in all locations, I have no way of knowing if the M9 really wrote to all locations or avoids the problem of the end of the card. I think you understand what I'm getting at.

 

I don't have the other disk utility program you cite. Interesting that some programs can get through ok and others can not. Again, to me, it points to the interface data handling at the SD card and not particularly the hardware.

 

Regards,

 

RM

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[Robert_M]

 

What Robert has done is, I suppose, interesting, but completely mad, IMHO. Who would even think about zeroing out a card, using Disk Utility, when the card is in a camera? Only in exceptional, extreme circumstances might one even think that this would be a great idea.

 

 

 

If you have read my posts, you would have seen that I already answered this. When one tries to diagnose a complex piece of technical equipment, it is more productive to isolate individual components one at a time to test. Reducing the number of variables makes it easier to focus on individual functions. That is the point of the test and indeed it has focused to a fault at exactly the area Leica admits there is a problem.

 

I did this test last test since K-H rightfully asked if there was another software test with a different OS which could produce the same result. I don't do this testing for the fun of trying to cripple tools.

 

RM

[UliWer]

I agree with Bill - for most of the part.

 

Of course it makes no sense to switch the camera off when it is still storing the files of your last pictures. Though users are sometimes idiots - at least I am. I remember using c-mode involuntarily and when I noticed it, I switched the camera off - and perhaps on again when the the storage of files was not yet completed.

 

We don't know for sure, though there are indications that this might lead to malfunctions of the card. If you don't get a message then, you think all is well - even if many files are corrupted.

 

Nobody is perfect - not even Leica. Though they might learn to improve some things to avoid harassment.

 

(There is a very interesting historical work about this process. The german Leica Historica Society published the "Tagebuch für Leica-Änderungen" - diary of changements for the Leica- which someone at Wetzlar wrote from 1928 to 1945. Here you find many entries, where Leitz had to learn that something was not well thought from the very beginning, so they had to change it; in other cases they choose to imply some small novelties proposed by users, until they learned that this lead to malfunctions of other devices. The whole book is completely factual and seems to be extremely boring at first sight. Though when you start to read some pages and compare this to actual problems, it becomes really funny).