CL Freezes

[michali]

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7 hours ago, Alan T Jones said:

I bought a used mint, boxed CL earlier this year, though from the condition of the box and all the documents inside, the camera may have been unused. Understandably I was a bit disconcerted to suddenly have had this freeze up problem when viewing images, especially if I enlarged the monitor image. I thought I had bought a duff body which had suddenly failed. The red data light came on and stayed one and the on/off switch would not work. A complete crash of all systems. I had been using a Sandisk 32 GB SDHC-1 card but my daughter had some content on the card so she took the card to download her images. I had an unused Lexar 32 GB SDHC-2 so I put this card in the camera as an interim measure and my problems started from then on. The Lexar card would appear to be faulty in some way and perhaps the CL electronics are sensitive to these faults. The problem does not happen with a similar size Lexar card which I took out of  my Leica M type 262 to try in the CL, nor does it occur with other new and unused Sandisk 32 GB SDHC-1cards. I tried the possibly defective card in my Leica M without any problems. The CL monitor gives a projected image capacity of over 500 with 32 GB which is rather a lot to risk in "one basket" so to speak. I have never had any problems with lower capacity storage so maybe I will revert to 16 or even 8 GB, if you can still buy them. Perhaps the moral of my tale is try all your cards rigorously before going out to shoot something important. 

Welcome to the Forum.

After having encountered the same issues with my new CL, I swapped from Lexar to Sandisk cards & no more issues.

Yesterday afternoon, I inserted a Lexar 32GB card into the camera to review some images & the camera froze again, it hasn't done this for almost a year. The Lexars appear to be a constant source of problems, my dealer tells me that by far Lexars are the most returned SD cards due to faults. 

[wda]

Back in the days of M8 and M9, there were similar stories of card malfunctions. Sandisk was the identified culprit and many users switched to Lexar. Lexar has been my brand of choice ever since. I very rarely have any troubles. As always, quality assurance standards fluctuate as personnel and machines change.

[jaapv]

Apart from the problem with Lexar cards, which are known to corrupt easily if there is a hitch (like premature shutdown(*)) when reading/writing,  NEVER to use a card from another camera without formatting it the camera you will be using it in, even if the cameras are the same brand but a different model, let alone different brands. That is a common cause of problems.

I have no problems on the CL using Sandisk or Panasonic cards from reliable suppliers.

(*) One of the quirks of the CL is a tendency to show the "battery low" warning only five seconds before the battery is completely empty, causing it to shut down at awkward moments.

[Alan T Jones]

Further to Jaapv reply and thank you for the information about Lexar cards in the CL. The card I used was brand new out of the packaging, never used in another camera and formatted before use. I tried reformatting it in the CL but it made no difference.  On the battery sudden drain down situation, I never let any batteries in any of my cameras get so low that a warning appears. If my M series cameras indicate 30% I insert a fully charged battery before attempting any photography outside. My daughter did run the batteries low when using the CL camera, but the card in use was a Sandisk SDHC-1. There have been no problems with it's use since so the finger is firmly pointed at the Lexar card. I will keep the Lexar cards for use in my Leica M and Canon 1DS Mk iii cameras which seem to be unaffected.

[Alan T Jones]

In reply to WDA, I never had any problems with Sandisk cards in either the M8 or M9. The only problem in the end was the M9 sensor corrosion which fortunately I spotted in time and got a very reasonable exchange deal direct from Leica for an M262.

[Alan T Jones]

In reply to Michali, I took a used same size and type of Lexar card out of an Leica M 262, formatted it and it worked fine in the CL. I reformatted the problem card and the freeze ups started immediately. If I had used the cards the other way round I would never have known there was a possible problem so there was a benefit in having the initial difficulty and then finding out it was not my camera after all

[wda]

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35 minutes ago, Alan T Jones said:

In reply to WDA, I never had any problems with Sandisk cards in either the M8 or M9. The only problem in the end was the M9 sensor corrosion which fortunately I spotted in time and got a very reasonable exchange deal direct from Leica for an M262.

That is good news, but it does not invalidate my comment, as any search should show. Cards are fragile and often the cause of camera operational failures.

[Alan T Jones]

To WDA, I take your point. this is the first card malfunction I have knowingly experienced. If I had used the card in my Canon 1DS Mk iii or my Leica M 262, I would not have known there was any problem with it. 

[wda]

On 10/2/2020 at 7:44 PM, Alan T Jones said:

To WDA, I take your point. this is the first card malfunction I have knowingly experienced. If I had used the card in my Canon 1DS Mk iii or my Leica M 262, I would not have known there was any problem with it. 

There is not a problem, per se, possibly just some slight incompatibility.  Although cards can deteriorate, with use.

[Alan T Jones]

To WDA, the card was brand new out of the packaging and not used previously. 

[ramarren]

I'll remind everyone again: Whenever you want to put an SD card into service, format and initialize it with SDFormatter. It's a a free download from SDCard.org, available for both Windows and macOS,and does the best possible formatting job on SD cards that can be done. Since started using it, I've had zero problems with ANY Sandisk, Lexar, or other camera no matter what camera I used whichever card in. I don't even bother reformatting cards when I plop them into a different camera to try something out. 

SDFormatter does a better job of the basic volume/file formatting for SD cards than any in-camera or other computer-based formatting solution I've tried over the past 15 years and some. It solves many of the irritating "this brand of card doesn't work in that kind of camera" problems. Nearly all such problems come down to niche/edge case problems with the card's volume format.

I've had people complain about a particular card or two that kept failing through dozens of computer and in-camera formatting operations. I ran them through SDFormatter and they never had a problem again. I'm sure there are cards it cannot "fix," but they're rare. 

[lct]

24 minutes ago, ramarren said:

Whenever you want to put an SD card into service, format and initialize it with SDFormatter.

+1