M11 freeze issues [Merged]

[hmzimelka]

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40 minutes ago, Fractal said:

That sucks, I'm sorry you've had issues.

I'm sure most users are having great experiences, but the videos, this thread and others have turned me away for now. It's unfortunate because on paper the M11 is a near perfect match for what I want.  I hope future iterations of the camera or firmware updates address the issues. While I know things can happen and issues will arise regardless of how tight QC may be or how optimized a camera can be, what I've seen and read with the M11 appears to be more prevalent than what I've seen with other systems. Not to say other cameras are perfect and are free of issues, but it appears there may be something lacking at Leica as far as software development or engineering is concerned. I think having a UHS-II reader in the camera, but then users recommending not to use the cards, regardless of card manufacturer, is telling of what's lacking.

Not trying to bash Leica, I haven't had this much enjoyment in photography for a good while so I really want all their releases to be a success.

 

It's funny because the owner of the retailer I purchased my 240 from kept going on about is dissatisfaction with with the M11. He wasn't particularly happy and mentioned he noticed more of his buyers returning it or encountering issues than normal. I guess he wasn't seeing them sell as much lately either.

Although I wasn't looking to get an M11 when I went in and I had already made it clear I was going to buy the M240 by the time he started talking about the M11, I took it as him trying to reinforce my decision at the time, but maybe there was little more to it. I don't know.

Well, I think the fear of a funky M11, while legitimate, is also not as widespread as one might fear... so far I've used four M11 cameras for about 500-1000 each with exception of my current one which has around 12000 actuations on it already. Non have locked up or froze during that time any more than my current one, which sees few and far between freezes.

It's very hard to have an objective view of the problem and transparency on this topic from Leica will never happen. 

 

It seems that any Leica M camera has had early teething issues... and by that it could be issues that only barely got resolved late in their lifecycle. 

In contrast to my M11 experience with 3 "faulty" or unacceptable copies of the M11, my experience with the original M Monochrom back in 2013 was much worse. I didn't have a single camera that focused properly since the rangefinders were all out of alignment, either horizontally or vertically, that non were really useable. One was so bad that 1/3 of the rangefinder patch didn't align with infinity when any lens was set to infinity. 

Let alone the other issues it had, freezes amongst these, the most annoying was the vertical white lines of dead, dying or lazy pixels. The M9 gen was really fussy with SD cards. Thank goodness I went through all 3 MM cameras that were available in SA at the time, because the sensor corrosion issue would have sent me on a rampage. 

Edited December 2, 2022 by hmzimelka

[lucy63]

6 hours ago, SrMi said:

I do not know where you buy your cars and cameras, but there is a huge difference between my car salesman and my camera shop salesman.

London camera exchange UK

[hdmesa]

7 hours ago, chasdfg said:

Unless having a bricked camera means you can't update the firmware at all, which means it has to go back and a new copy be sent

Yes, but they’re replacing the ones that are just locking up but not dead, too. That means lockup = hardware issue.

[mrmalo]

18 minutes ago, hdmesa said:

they’re replacing the ones that are just locking up but not dead, too.

I think it all depends on the relationship you have with your camera shop / leica dealer... If you're a "great" customer, they'll give you a new camera no matter what you think the problem is...

 

[hdmesa]

1 hour ago, mrmalo said:

I think it all depends on the relationship you have with your camera shop / leica dealer... If you're a "great" customer, they'll give you a new camera no matter what you think the problem is...

 

It was my understanding that Leica was sending the replacements versus the store doing a swap for customer satisfaction reasons. Maybe that is changing now since they seem to be in stock everywhere.

If it were firmware, the replacement would just start locking up again. 

Edited December 2, 2022 by hdmesa

[MyLeicaWorld]

Mine production date is July 2022 and  until yesterday never had a freeze problem but yesterday it happened.. at the screen it was written “please wait” . I waited for 30 seconds .. nothing happened and I’ve taken out the battery.. and put it back again.. and everything was alright..  I had never experienced such problem with my M10 before ..

[elmars]

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I had never total freezes with my M9, my M262 or my M10. But others had. A single camera is not representative. There are combinations of settings or operation that lead to freezes.

I had many, many freezes with my M11 in the betatest stadium. Now I have none. So the firmware was improved massively, but it is not good enough. In my opinion resp observation there are too many reports about freezes. Leica should work hard on this.

[lct]

18 hours ago, Kwesi said:

Not trying to change your mind but for the record, I’ve only used sandisk UHS II cards in my M11 since January and have had no issues. 

You're piquing my curiosity. I just ordered a Sandisk Extreme pro UHS-II card to compare with my Sandisk Extreme pro UHS-I. The camera won't explode with it hopefully .

[Kwesi]

51 minutes ago, lct said:

You're piquing my curiosity. I just ordered a Sandisk Extreme pro UHS-II card to compare with my Sandisk Extreme pro UHS-I. The camera won't explode with it hopefully .

After so many years of using the UHS-1 cards in my other M’s I wasn’t prepared for the price difference so I’m happy that if nothing else at least my camera didn’t explode!

[lct]

19 minutes ago, Kwesi said:

After so many years of using the UHS-1 cards in my other M’s I wasn’t prepared for the price difference so I’m happy that if nothing else at least my camera didn’t explode!

I'm not that reassured though... Did you format your USH-II cards in the M11 before shooting?

[Kwesi]

Just now, lct said:

I'm not that reassured though... Did you format your USH-II cards in the M11 before shooting?

No. SD Formatter first. Full format, then I  Format in camera to establish Leica filing system. I never delete images in camera and always lock card before inserting into my Mac laptop. 
This has been my workflow since the M9 days. 

[lct]

5 minutes ago, Kwesi said:

No. SD Formatter first. Full format, then I  Format in camera to establish Leica filing system. I never delete images in camera and always lock card before inserting into my Mac laptop. 
This has been my workflow since the M9 days. 

I only use SD formatter with all my cameras. My Sony's ask me to format the cards in the camera when inserting them but not the M11, with UHS-I cards at least. Does your M11 prompt you to do so with UHS-II cards? Just curious.

[Kwesi]

I don’t remember getting a prompt. 

[lct]

OK i'll do as usual then i.e. SD Card Formatter only. Not to contradict you of course but to better compare with my UHS-I workflow .

[Kwesi]

I only do the full format when I first buy the card. After that I only format in camera and only when the card is full. Because I lock the card before transferring files to my computer I don't have to worry about my Mac writing files to the card that could potentially trip up the camera. So no need to format after each download.

[SrMi]

2 hours ago, Musky said:

Is there a difference between formatting in-camera and formatting with sD card formatter. 

SD Memory Card Formatter should be used instead of the computer's formatting tools.

I do not know of any benefits vs. in-camera formatting. SD Memory Card Formatter offers options (overwrite format) that in-camera formatting (quick format) does not.

[SrMi]

4 minutes ago, Musky said:

Usually I just run the quick format with SD Card formatter. 

Other than making photos unrecoverable in case you’ll sell or give away the sd card, is there any benefit of choosing the overwrite format?

No.

BTW, I am almost always running a "Delete All" instead of "Format".

[lct]

I have met two benefits of SD Card Formatter personally. With Sony cameras, in-camera formatting is or has been more destructive when using non Sony cards. I noticed this when trying to recover pic files from a crashed card. Also, on the M240, startup and wakeup times proved shorter when formatting any card with SD Card Formatter. I format all my cards with SD Card Formatter since then. Quick format only.  99% success on the M11 so far but i use  UHS-I cards exclusively. Just ordered one UHS-II Sandisk card to see if it works better than the Sony Tough card that caused my only failure on the M11. I have not yet received it so i have some time to write my will .

[ianforber]

My approach seems so simple. I insert the card in the camera and format it. Job done.
 

I’ve done this with all brands of digital cameras I’ve had over the years without any problems. I never delete an image in camera, just import them into my Mac and then put the card back in the camera and format it again. 

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[charlesphoto99]

22 hours ago, SrMi said:

SD Memory Card Formatter should be used instead of the computer's formatting tools.

I do not know of any benefits vs. in-camera formatting. SD Memory Card Formatter offers options (overwrite format) that in-camera formatting (quick format) does not.

In almost twenty years of using digital cameras, I've never had to use a formatter outside of the cameras. Let's face it, if this is the case with the M11, that one has to use a third party formatter, then it's a 'broken' camera.