My Lockups have stopped

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I now wonder if these images were accidentally locked by me.

 

Negative. Formatting the card would get rid of any and all images, locked or not. However, a quick format only removes the entries (the file names) from the directories while leaving the content of the images on the medium.

 

If parts of old images appear in new ones, the most likely causes are

(1) the writing of the new images was interrupted, most likely by removal of the card and/or the battery from the camera or

(2) the card is defective.

[algrove]

I believe I will overwrite the cards that were recently used where I had hiccups and not really lockups.

[k-hawinkler]

I believe I will overwrite the cards that were recently used where I had hiccups and not really lockups.

 

Good idea!

[LocalHero1953]

Back to the original topic.

 

I've just had a lock up while taking shots on a construction site:

- single shots at long intervals.

- auto ISO and auto shutter.

- classic metering.

- LV disabled in the menu.

- EVF not attached.

- latest firmware.

- Sandisk 32gb Extreme Pro card, originally formatted with SDFormatter.

- SD card reformatted in camera (I.e. previous files not deleted).

- SD card 90% empty.

- sunny weather, about 12degC.

 

I.e. This is the lightning from a blue sky scenario.

I sorted it by removing the battery.

 

I'm posting here for the record.

I can live with this (I've had a few lookups before with previous f/w), as my livelihood does not depend on getting the shot.

But what seriously irritates me is the lack of an obvious way to report faults to Leica. Without a fault reporting system, I cannot be sure they are looking for a solution. But I am absolutely certain they are not gathering data systematically that would help them find a solution.

[CheshireCat]

But I am absolutely certain they are not gathering data systematically that would help them find a solution.

 

All is needed to fix this issue is being able to replicate it. And it can clearly be replicated.

When it happens, they can check what's going wrong with an ICE.

 

I am "absolutely certain" Leica does not care about fixing it. And this is also because of the attitude of many users in this forum.

[lct]

[...] And this is also because of the attitude of many users in this forum.

Those who cannot replicate i guess... I won't repeat what i said ad nauseam. If your body is faulty, send it in if you want to get a fix. Otherwise, Leica will have no reason to care about rantings coming from a dozen (if not less) LUF members.

[pico]

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Back to the original topic.

[...]what seriously irritates me is the lack of an obvious way to report faults to Leica. Without a fault reporting system, I cannot be sure they are looking for a solution. But I am absolutely certain they are not gathering data systematically that would help them find a solution.

 

It was discussed once that a 'dump' feature which writes to debug files in the SD root would be helpful. I do not know if any camera manufacturer does that.

[k-hawinkler]

Back to the original topic.

 

I've just had a lock up while taking shots on a construction site:

- single shots at long intervals.

- auto ISO and auto shutter.

- classic metering.

- LV disabled in the menu.

- EVF not attached.

- latest firmware.

- Sandisk 32gb Extreme Pro card, originally formatted with SDFormatter.

- SD card reformatted in camera (I.e. previous files not deleted).

- SD card 90% empty.

- sunny weather, about 12degC.

 

I.e. This is the lightning from a blue sky scenario.

I sorted it by removing the battery.

 

I'm posting here for the record.

I can live with this (I've had a few lookups before with previous f/w), as my livelihood does not depend on getting the shot.

But what seriously irritates me is the lack of an obvious way to report faults to Leica. Without a fault reporting system, I cannot be sure they are looking for a solution. But I am absolutely certain they are not gathering data systematically that would help them find a solution.

 

 

 

Thanks. Spot on, there has to be a Leica fault reporting system!

Have you considered sending your camera in and requesting a properly functioning one?

[CheshireCat]

Those who cannot replicate i guess... I won't repeat what i said ad nauseam. If your body is faulty, send it in if you want to get a fix. Otherwise, Leica will have no reason to care about rantings coming from a dozen (if not less) LUF members.

 

Your attitude is exactly what I am talking about.

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Your attitude is exactly what I am talking about.

 

Yes, it must be very difficult to understand that if you have a faulty specimen you should return it.

[LocalHero1953]

Thanks. Spot on, there has to be a Leica fault reporting system!

Have you considered sending your camera in and requesting a properly functioning one?

 

No. Because I am not convinced that this is a problem with individual cameras rather than particular scenarios that produce lockups with this f/w. It may be so, but until that is clear, I don't want to lose the use of my camera for a period. As I said, I can live with the occasional glitch. Life's too short to return everything I buy that is not perfect.

 

I don't doubt that Leica want to solve this problem - not least because they won't want it replicated in the next M. But they appear not to be setting about it in a particular systematic way. (Of course, they may know exactly what the problem is - and it may be unfixable!)

[Paulus]

I don't want to lose the use of my camera for a period. )

 

I solved that problem when I bought 2 M camera's.

[Guest JonathanP]

I find the idea of having to return hardware in order to report a software bug bizarre.

 

I'm a software engineer by profession and in a previous job I worked for a tier 1 mobile phone manufacturer. Like any such product there were a range of bugs present that were not seen by most users. We didn't expect those that did experience a bug to send their handset in for several months. What we did was to collect bug reports (partly automated due to the connected nature of a phone, but Leica could implement a user reporting form). After categorisation, the top issues were reviewed at a senior level and engineering resource had to be deployed to fix those at the top of the hit list. Status checking of these bugs went right to the top of the company, and if your code was affected you made sure it was fixed very quickly. Its remarkable how rapidly you can remove almost all user impacting issues when an approach like this is taken. If Leica fixed the bug at the top of the pile at only 1 per week, most of the complaints on this forum could be silenced in a fairly short time.

 

To adopt this strategy they only need to collect bug reports and have a small triage team categorise them to build the hit list. Its not rocket science and doesn't need anyone to be without their camera.

 

Jonathan

[k-hawinkler]

No. Because I am not convinced that this is a problem with individual cameras rather than particular scenarios that produce lockups with this f/w. It may be so, but until that is clear, I don't want to lose the use of my camera for a period. As I said, I can live with the occasional glitch. Life's too short to return everything I buy that is not perfect.

 

I don't doubt that Leica want to solve this problem - not least because they won't want it replicated in the next M. But they appear not to be setting about it in a particular systematic way. (Of course, they may know exactly what the problem is - and it may be unfixable!)

 

 

Thanks, I sympathize with your views. You may be right that the problems with the M are scenario specific. That certainly was the case with my M9.

[LocalHero1953]

I suspect also Leica does not have a stock of known "properly functioning" cameras for issue. If I have any opinion on the cause that is worth passing on at all, it is that the camera (hardware and/firmware) has no safety margin in conditions that can cause lockups. Within the statistical variation of manufacturing and component tolerances, perhaps some bodies are just over the edge and more likely to lockup than others, without there being a distinct fault that can be seen in one batch and not another.

 

But what do I know? I'm just a geologist:o

[CheshireCat]

Yes, it must be very difficult to understand that if you have a faulty specimen you should return it.

 

Thanks for your pristine example of arrogant attitude, as if you knew for sure I have a faulty camera.

[pop]

Thanks for your pristine example of arrogant attitude, as if you knew for sure I have a faulty camera.

 

Your manners are somewhat objectionable. Again.

 

You behave as if it was given that "the" problem is solely and exclusively a software problem. You have not produced any evidence for your forcibly expressed opinion.

 

As far as I am concerned, the following hold true:

- We do not know how many different causes there are, all resulting in apparently stalled cameras.

- In consequence, I dare say no one here can say with any certainty whether the main cause or causes lie with the hardware, the software, the user or any combination thereof.

- Given the demographics and expected qualifications of the customer base, reliable and accurate error documentation will be even more difficult to obtain than is the case with - say - desktop computers, and it's already difficult with these.

- No one here knows how much or how little effort Leica spends in determining the nature of the problem or problems; I think we can legitimately assume that the search - if any - has not been successful.

- While any number of more or less accurate accounts (or, at times, rants) in an internet forum may not spur Leica into action, an appreciable number of cameras returned for perceived defects certainly will.

- Given the possibility that some of the occurrences do indeed depend in some manner on the hardware, chances will grow that the cause can be determined.

 

Hence, the advice to return a camera which exhibits this behaviour is not inconsistent with good practice. However, it would still be better to find a way to reproduce the occurrence with reasonable frequency.

[CheshireCat]

You behave as if it was given that "the" problem is solely and exclusively a software problem. You have not produced any evidence for your forcibly expressed opinion.

 

It is you who just forcibly stated that the problem is not only hardware related, but it is just with my specimen. ... and that "it must be very difficult for me to understand this" (i.e. I am an idiot because I cannot realize it).

 

I am probably not expert as you are in software and hardware engineering, but it is very difficult for me to understand your claim, because by my experience, this kind of random issues happening to a lot but not all users in normal operating conditions are usually software related.

I obviously cannot produce any evidence, as I have better things to do than debugging a closed-source device.

 

- We do not know how many different causes there are, all resulting in apparently stalled cameras.

- In consequence, I dare say no one here can say with any certainty whether the main cause or causes lie with the hardware, the software, the user or any combination thereof.

 

Not with certainty, but by the symptoms, we can say that the cause is most probably software related. Jperkins' post above supports this opinion.

And "the user" is not broken in this case, so please keep me out of the equation.

 

- Given the demographics and expected qualifications of the customer base, reliable and accurate error documentation will be even more difficult to obtain than is the case with - say - desktop computers, and it's already difficult with these.

 

There are plenty of accurate reports in this forum and on the Internet.

In any case, it is impossible that no one at Leica can reproduce the issue, which is all that is needed to understand the cause.

 

- No one here knows how much or how little effort Leica spends in determining the nature of the problem or problems; I think we can legitimately assume that the search - if any - has not been successful.

 

Indeed, and this is a shame. Leica is totally absent.

 

- While any number of more or less accurate accounts (or, at times, rants) in an internet forum may not spur Leica into action, an appreciable number of cameras returned for perceived defects certainly will.

 

Do you think Leica has no Internet connection to receive support emails and read user feedbacks in forums ?

 

- Given the possibility that some of the occurrences do indeed depend in some manner on the hardware, chances will grow that the cause can be determined.

 

Hence, the advice to return a camera which exhibits this behaviour is not inconsistent with good practice. However, it would still be better to find a way to reproduce the occurrence with reasonable frequency.

 

They already have Lloyd's camera to reproduce the issue:

diglloyd: Leica M Typ 240: Operational Reliability in the Field

... and his new replacement camera was defective as well.

 

Sorry, but I'll skip.

[algrove]

 

 

I'm afraid that most probably you are observing an effect and not the cause of the problem.

 

Erasing an image just removes the entry from the directory and marks the space occupied by the image as available for whatever purpose needs some space.

 

Formatting an SD card (without overwriting) merely writes a set of empty directories (and some additional bookkeeping data) to the card. The process, too, leaves all discarded directory entries and - again - the contents of all images on your card to be overwritten at leisure at a later time.

 

Hence, if you find in your directory the heading of a new image and within that all or part of an old image, the camera (that is, the computer within your camera) has written the new directory entry but has not yet written the content of the image, or not all of it.

 

The reasons for this are either that the computer has stalled for some reason between writing the entry in the directory and the actual image or that is has been prevented from doing so by sudden and unexpected removal of the card or the battery.

 

If the computer has stalled, it could be because of some malfunctioning hardware or software in the camera or because the card had some kind of problem and did not reply the answers expected by the camera within a reasonable time frame.

 

Hence, there are three places we can look for the source of the problem: the camera itself, the SD card or the user.

 

From long experience with computers I can state with some authority that removing the source of power or a storage medium while writing is supposed to be in progress will most likely damage the data being written. This might be just the body of the image, but it might be just as soon part of the directory or the bookkeeping data on the card. In any event, I'd consider any card in the camera as highly unsafe for further use until it has been formatted again on a computer with a software program which can deal with any kind of error on the card. One such program has been named, which is SDFormatter. I would not trust the camera to do that properly, as I assume that the formatting and card handling software within any camera will only be able to deal with normal situations where everything is as is supposed to be, if that.

 

Questions: when the camera locks up after doing a series of shots, how much time do you usually allow for the camera to resume working before you decide that it is locked up? How do you determine that it is still locked up after some time?

 

I was trying to find a post by someone who had assurances from Leica that these lockup issues would be dealt with in the next FW update and then realized I might not have answered your end of post questions.

 

When I get a lockup (before owning the M-P) I wait for about one minute when I see the red light on solid and without blinks. Bilinks I have come to assume tell me it is writing to the SD card. After this one minute from many experiences of turning the camera off and on does not solve the issue, so I then revert to removing the battery when the red light is solid on after one minute or more. Once the battery is reinstalled everhthing is back to normal operation.

 

Keep in mind I offered to let Leica keep my camera last summer while in Solms and discussing my frequent lockups. They said no lockups had ever been reported so they declined to keep my camera, but did make note of all my settings from the Menu and Set screens. However one PR guy in the showroom said he had one lockup and changed his EVF and had had none since the EVF change.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[pop]

It is you who just forcibly stated that the problem is not only hardware related, but it is just with my specimen. ... and that "it must be very difficult for me to understand this" ...

 

Not quite.

 

Someone suggested that cameras which exhibit the problem should be sent in for repair. You, CheshireCat, then claimed that the kind of user suggesting this sort of thing was in some kind contributing to Leica's perceived willingness or unwillingness to fix "the problem".

 

I don't think anyone was talking about your specimen. I don't even know whether you have an M or not, and I don't have to know. I'm not that interested.

 

Leica is in the business of selling cameras. If you happen to own one of those cameras which fails to take photographs under circumstances when there is no reason for the camera not to take a photograph, it's defective. It's none of your business whether the problem is caused by hardware or software. You did not buy hardware or software as such; you bought a product made of a combination of materials and a combination of software components. Defective cameras should be brought back for repair or replacement.

 

Leica may or may not take notice of people writing about this particular topic in internet forums. They certainly can not inspect or fix cameras they can not see.