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M9 locked up leading to a very important photo missed.


tappan

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Interesting comment, I don't have to prove a thing - they work for me <period>

 

Best to all. Terry

 

No you don't have to prove a thing, but the things you are doing may have nothing to do with why you have not had this issue, yet. The things you write about in your post sound like very good practices, but in the end they may have nothing to do with why you are not experiencing problems, that's all. It would be like me posting that I always touch my nose before I turn the camera on and then posting that I do this and have never had a problem. Not real scientific. The only difference is that your ideas sound more plausable.

 

Now, had you stated that you have done these things you think are so important and then you didn't perform "X" and you experienced the problem, then that would have some value. Also, I'm not trying to single you out personally, I'm just getting tired of these posts that have people running around doing things that should never have to be done if the camera was designed correctly. I believe the problem lies somewhere else.

 

The only variable I can add is that all my cards are over 2 years old. I bought a bunch of 4mb and 8MB cards when I got my initial M8 and haven't had the need to buy more.

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Rick,

 

Could I please ask you a favor, helping to see whether your M9 is affected with the same problems or not?

 

If your answer is no, please ignore my post and I apologize.

 

If your answer is yes, please do the following:

 

Set to C not S

Set M9 to power down automatically after 1 minute

Shoot DNG & JPG fine

Use bracketing as well

Fiddle with the controls in the back while images are being stored

Zoom in, move within an image etc.

Delete an image or two in camera

Also, just switch camera off while it's still busy

 

Please note, as the problem is intermittent your camera won't fail on demand

So you need to keep it up for awhile, say for the next 1000 images

The purpose is to help debug the M9

 

Of course, one would never behave like that if one's interest is just taking pictures

 

However, all those actions are permitted by Leica's user manual

Please, let us know if your camera eventually fails or not.

 

Many thanks, K-H.

 

K-H,

 

I am not going to spend time doing any of this. I've probably done most/all of these things in the las 1 1/2 years that I've had the camera and I've not experienced the problems.

 

I don't think that what you want me to do will be related to the final solution by Leica. Sure, filling the buffer and then asking the camera to perform another operation sounds like it could be problematic. And, using a card from another brand of camera could cause a problem. It sounds logical and these operations shouldn't cause a problem, because good software and hardware engineering should design logic that deals with these possibilities. And, I agree that I should be able to use all of these operations without risk of failure.

 

But, read Rolo's post. He did everything right and still experienced freeze-ups. He formatted in camera and it sounds like he did all this stuff right. He still had a problem. And, myself and others have broken all these suggestions and haven't had one problem. Something else is going on.

 

I'm not going to spend my time shooting and fiddling around with your list. It isn't my hobby horse, it is yours. And, by the way, I'm glad you are hounding Leica, because some percentage of people are having problems. And, I'll load the solution update like everyone else and probably forget to thank you. :D

 

Carry on,

 

Rick

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Hi Rick,

 

Many thanks. That's a very fair reply.

I assume the majority of M9 users have deservedly your attitude and will take advantage once the problems hopefully have been resolved soon.

 

This type of work used to be included in my profession before I retired.

I will be glad going just back to enjoying my M9 once it works correctly.

 

Thanks again for your reply.

 

With best regards, K-H.

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K-H, thanks for the nice reply. I tend to think that it has to do with new hardware and software on the newer cards + a second unknown factor that is unique to how Leica handles the write to disc and the error checking. It may take several of these to corrupt. Somehow, these unexpected set of events happen with the new cards while writing and some sort of error is recognized by the Leica software and the camera is hanging up/freezing the Leica code when this happens.

 

I'm not trying very hard to understand all of this. And, I'm certainly not spending time with all of these voodoo procedures people are listing as good practices to try and avoid the problems because, I don't think what is really going on is understandable to those that can't get ahold of the Leica code (all of us). And, it is probably pretty safe for me to make sweeping statements because, once the new software is released, there will be no definitive statement from Leica explaining what was the problem.

 

This is why I'm sticking to my old cards until this is resolved. I have deliberately not bought any new cards for my upcoming holiday to Italy - touch nose. :D:D:D

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Rick,

 

Thanks. Enjoy your trip. I am sure you and your wife will.

I hope you will continue cheering us up with your fabulous images as you have done so in the past - if I am not mistaken.

 

With best regards, K-H.

 

PS: Finale Ligure, pretty nice too. That village is near Genoa. Have been there. Best seafood pizza in my life.

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K-H, Finale Ligure looks great. It is just west of Genoa I see. We will unfortunately be traveling inland when we come up the coast to Genoa and won't make it past Finale Ligure on this trip. Too bad, it looks nice.

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The problems must be a hardware mismatch between the processor in the card, the input/output hardware in the camera and the various pressures put on the cameras processor.

 

The only variable here in all of this is the processing speed of the processor in the card.

 

Everything else is basically the same.

 

The fact that most people have no problems suggests a hardware variability in the M9 is causing the problem. Clock speeds, voltages and latency have variable tolerances and must be part of the issue.

 

The only way the firmware could be involved and/or help is in how it recognises and handles errors..... but if Leica cannot identify precisely what is going on they cannot re-write the software to act accordingly.....

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The only way the firmware could be involved and/or help is in how it recognises and handles errors.....

 

Back when computers used to store data on diskettes, they all were set to automatically verify if the the data could be read back again, even if that entailed a great loss of time and gave only a mediocre degree of security.

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I believe they still do, also for USB sticks & other (external?) drives. You don't notice with the current read/write speeds & clock frequencies.

 

Remember AT (80286) processors usually running at 6 MHz, with a "turbo" button to overclock to 12 MHz? Only suitable for the adventurous.

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Back when computers used to store data on diskettes, they all were set to automatically verify if the the data could be read back again, even if that entailed a great loss of time and gave only a mediocre degree of security.

 

We used to punch out two identical paper tapes when editing and validate that both were the same, if they were not you needed to replace the punch and run the edit script a 3rd time. The paper tape punches were not very reliable.

 

Nowdays some media uses error correction during write to salve data after write errors or subsequent errors.

 

Noel

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Excellent observation. If you remember all your camera settings, could you please post them here. Also describe exactly your memory card. At what level was your battery? Do you roughly remember what the air temperature was, hot, cold, moderate?

 

Thanks, K-H.

 

No, but I do remember I had a full bladder pressing on my brain so I couldn't think straight...I think...I'll document my bladder volume next time it happens and forward the data to Leica.

 

I should add that the problem is very infrequent...I don't lose sleep over it.

 

Mark

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VERY frustrating, as I missed an important photo. I snapped one photo and the exposure was not what I wanted (MY MISTAKE) so I then wanted to just delete that one SINGLE photo. I deleted the one single photo and my camera locked up. The only way I could take more photos was to take the battery out for more than a few seconds and then put it back in. This is definitely not what I want happening for the damn money we all have paid for this camera. So, any thoughts from this helpful forum? The card was a Sandisk Extreme 111 8gb.

Thanks,

Mark

Mark I, too, have suffered this problem in the past; ONCE. I checked the Leica website and found that the Sandisk Extreme 111 8gb does not feature on Leica's lit of checked cards. I never use it in my M9 although it works well in other cameras.

 

From members' experiences, this particular card does seem to be one of the most common sources of failure. I do hope Leica and Sandisk are sorting out the problem because the failures do neither company any favours.

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Mine does it more than it should, and I'm pretty sure it's a bad battery.

 

Suggest you try another battery then. Avoid the other stimuli possibilities. Intermittent system faults can take a while to become visible and a while to locate.

Early adopters get all the 'fun'...

 

Noel

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THIS IS A $7,000 CAMERA. It should NEVER lock up....

That implies that you think a lower-priced camera should lock up. :p

 

I say no camera should lock up no matter the price.

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That implies that you think a lower-priced camera should lock up. :p

 

I say no camera should lock up no matter the price.

 

 

Every digital camera I own has locked up on me at some point, but the M8 is the one which did it most.

 

I am happy that Leica is doing well financially, but it is time to make a quality product again.

 

Edmund

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No you don't have to prove a thing, but the things you are doing may have nothing to do with why you have not had this issue, yet. The things you write about in your post sound like very good practices, but in the end they may have nothing to do with why you are not experiencing problems, that's all. It would be like me posting that I always touch my nose before I turn the camera on and then posting that I do this and have never had a problem. Not real scientific. The only difference is that your ideas sound more plausable.

 

Now, had you stated that you have done these things you think are so important and then you didn't perform "X" and you experienced the problem, then that would have some value. Also, I'm not trying to single you out personally, I'm just getting tired of these posts that have people running around doing things that should never have to be done if the camera was designed correctly. I believe the problem lies somewhere else.

 

The only variable I can add is that all my cards are over 2 years old. I bought a bunch of 4mb and 8MB cards when I got my initial M8 and haven't had the need to buy more.

 

As I said clearly.... they work for ME.... I will assume you read the "me". I continue to dislike Internet forums and once again :) swear off making any sort of comment here or elsewhere. SIGH. Fortunately for me my M9 works flawlessly - some others don't.

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We used to punch out two identical paper tapes when editing and validate that both were the same, if they were not you needed to replace the punch and run the edit script a 3rd time. The paper tape punches were not very reliable.

 

Heck, we used to dip mag tape in an iron solution to measure the data gaps and data - visually.

 

Nowdays some media uses error correction during write to salve data after write errors or subsequent errors.

 

Noel

 

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