M11 freeze issues [Merged]

[lct]

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57 minutes ago, hdmesa said:

I read it this way:

"...Our developers are hoping they can fix the issue via a firmware update. [retranslated:] Also, if you have any ideas of what the problem is, please let us know because we are currently at a loss."

I don't know what those developers are good at actually but we've seen freeze issues on both M240 and M10 previously and all have been fixed by firmware update AFAIK. All hope is not lost for the M11 then and it is not fair to spread the idea that hardware issues can be at work w/o any supporting evidence IMHO. Nothing personal needless to say .

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[hdmesa]

16 minutes ago, lct said:

I don't know what those developers are good at actually but we've seen freeze issues on both M240 and M10 previously and all have been fixed by firmware update AFAIK. All hope is not lost for the M11 then and it is not fair to spread the idea that hardware issues can be at work w/o any supporting evidence IMHO. Nothing personal needless to say .

Can't say for sure either way, can we? IDK about Leica's history with it, but my recent experience was with the Canon R5 freezing, which turned out to be a main board issue. And as others have mentioned, you can sometimes work around a hardware defect with firmware, though.

[Herr Barnack]

30 minutes ago, lct said:

I don't know what those developers are good at actually but we've seen freeze issues on both M240 and M10 previously and all have been fixed by firmware update AFAIK. All hope is not lost for the M11 then and it is not fair to spread the idea that hardware issues can be at work w/o any supporting evidence IMHO. Nothing personal needless to say .

@lct  I would have to agree with you. 

At this point, things do not look good regarding the M11.  That is not to say that Leica will not at some point get it right.  Here's hoping, because I would like to have an M11 once it is sorted out.

My first digital camera was the M240, and I did get freezes from time to time.  It seemed that the 1 GB buffer would get log jammed.  I traded it for the M-P 240 with a 2 GB buffer and never had a freezeup.   Therefore, I attributed the M240's freezes to the smaller buffer capacity.

With my M-P 240, I had a lot of corrupted files problems until I ditched my Lexar SD cards and started using only SanDisk SD cards.  I have had no problems at all since changing to SanDisk cards.

I think we can conclude that for whatever reason, some digital M cameras are fickle about some things.  I say "fickle" because many M11 users report no freezes at all, while others are plagued with freezes.  I think we can also conclude that some brands of SD cards "do not work and play well" with some digital M cameras.

Let's hope that Leica can get this figured out.  Yes, it should have been figured out before the M11 dropped, but we have to deal with the situation as it is and hope for a positive resolution.  I dare say we all have "should haves" in  our history.

 

Edited January 23, 2023 by Herr Barnack

[jakontil]

9 hours ago, Photoworks said:

what 1 person reported that it would not turn on anymore? is it the same person that said later that the battery was empty and after charging it worked fine?

in any case if you do it professionally and you are serious you would have spare equipment with you to finish the job.

Different

Anyway, not every m11 user is in the same situation

[Photoworks]

Let's say lexar had some problem with quality control and the market flooding with exact copies from china.

the company was at the end sold and closed and a new company came of it ProGrade.

few years later someone resurrected Lexar from the dead and they are using the old labeling machine again. 

In the past 30 years as a professional in NY I often heard from colleges how they lost the shoot from card problem, corruption , or data that could not be recovered, that was all thanks to Lexar.

[Pixeleater]

2 hours ago, Photoworks said:

this Sony SD card are problem in many cameras, on Leica they don't work.

The Sony Tough card works on my SL2 and SL2-S. No problems. The same card did not work on my M10-R.

Edited January 23, 2023 by Pixeleater

[jakontil]

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1 hour ago, Pixeleater said:

The Sony Tough card works on my SL2 and SL2-S. No problems. The same card did not work on my M10-R.

My sony uhs II 300mb, been using this on my M11 since day one, works fine, may be not all sony card variants 

[Qlan]

9 hours ago, lct said:

I was not clear enough then. If i set Lens Detection to Off it will stay off as long as the camera has no lens profile in memory. Now if i enter a lens profile manually, say a 50/2, the camera will believe that the next uncoded lens, a 135/4 for example, is still a 50/2. To avoid this, as i suggested above, i will set Lens Detection to Off or, better so, i will hand code uncoded lenses so that Lens Detection can stay set to Auto for all of them.

When I change lenses, I manually change the Lens Detection Manual M to the corresponding lens. I don't mind doing it every time I change the lens. How is that different from Lens Detection Off? Since the 6bit reader will read uncoded lens for both lenses, then it should stick to the lens I manual chose in Manual M, right? Then it is my responsibility to change the Manual M lens. In theory, this is no different from the camera's perspective than having it Off. Because in both cases, it is never truly off, cause it will jump back to Auto as soon as it detects a 6bit code. The only way it can do that is if the body tries to read the code at every startup, regardless of Lens Detection being Off, Manual M or Manual R.

[lct]

2 hours ago, Qlan said:

When I change lenses, I manually change the Lens Detection Manual M to the corresponding lens. I don't mind doing it every time I change the lens. How is that different from Lens Detection Off? [...]

It is different at the very moment i put the 135/4 on the camera in my example above. There is a conflict between informations coming from the flange of the lens (35/135) and the lens profile i have entered previously and is still in memory (50). I am totally unable to tell the consequences of such a conflict if any but fact is everything works when it is eliminated by either setting Lens Detection to Off or hand coding the lens.

[DAERASO]

Quote

 

This is all so troublesome and disturbing. Maybe it's a mix of some bad hardware and premature software which both are equally as bad and tainting for a company that has such reputation and price tags. I don't see another explanation for such inconsistent freezes and bricks. Some do some don't some do more than others some none. I would imagine bad firmware would be more consistent across the board and somehow replicable. The inconsistency leads me to believe there ca be some bad hardware issues as well.

 

I'm 700 shots in, a month later and the only time it kinda froze was using the wrong cable to import photos into the computer which I plugged the cable then turn the camera on almost as the same time as I plugged it in and like the shutter didn't go up so I turned it off, turned it on again and it all went normal.

 

It's such a shame so many people cannot enjoy their $10k camera, unacceptable for any manufacture but in such genre with such prestigious company that prides themselves in quality and all that, it's beyond embarrassing and just shouldn't happen to this level. There's going to be mess ups and bad lemons anywhere it happens but a few here and there is not the same as reading through this forum and other places online such YouTube, etc.

 

Hopefully everybody that's been affected gets taken care of if needed. I hope the firmware releases come out soon to put these issues to rest if it is software related only. Leica needs to pay whoever they need to pay whatever it's necessary to take care of this asap cause were a year in already...

 

 

[Herr Barnack]

14 hours ago, Photoworks said:

Let's say lexar had some problem with quality control and the market flooding with exact copies from china.

the company was at the end sold and closed and a new company came of it ProGrade.

few years later someone resurrected Lexar from the dead and they are using the old labeling machine again. 

In the past 30 years as a professional in NY I often heard from colleges how they lost the shoot from card problem, corruption , or data that could not be recovered, that was all thanks to Lexar.

100% of my Lexar SD cards came from B&H; I would have thought that B&H got them directly from Lexar, negating the chance for counterfeit copies from China to infiltrate their supply chain.  Perhaps not.  Or perhaps the Lexar SD cards I bought from B&H were inherently defective coming from Lexar.

Whatever the case, the moral of the story for me is:  Avoid Lexar SD cards like the plague, along with ProGrade for good measure.  I want nothing to do with anything that comes from Lexar or any rebranded/disguised Lexar product.

 

Edited January 23, 2023 by Herr Barnack

[jakontil]

9 hours ago, Herr Barnack said:

100% of my Lexar SD cards came from B&H; I would have thought that B&H got them directly from Lexar, negating the chance for counterfeit copies from China to infiltrate their supply chain.  Perhaps not.  Or perhaps the Lexar SD cards I bought from B&H were inherently defective coming from Lexar.

Whatever the case, the moral of the story for me is:  Avoid Lexar SD cards like the plague, along with ProGrade for good measure.  I want nothing to do with anything that comes from Lexar or any rebranded/disguised Lexar product.

 

ProGrade too? Wow i thought it was at least better than lexar.. all comes down to sandisk with the idea of adding extra uhs II in my case then

[Kiwimac]

I’m going to make a wacky suggestion:

 

 If the SD card is the root of all this, perhaps the answer is for Leica to test SD cards before launch and include one in the box of whatever card they approve?

[lct]

•

Edited January 24, 2023 by lct

[Shavou]

52 minutes ago, Kiwimac said:

I’m going to make a wacky suggestion:

 

 If the SD card is the root of all this, perhaps the answer is for Leica to test SD cards before launch and include one in the box of whatever card they approve?

Unfortunately it is not - it is clear that many M11 (including mine) freeze even when shooting with internal memory only

[lct]

Besides SD cards, some problems seem to come from uncoded lenses or the management of them by the M11 firmware. It could be interesting to know how many faulty bodies were fit with such uncoded lenses when the freeze problems occurred to them.

Edited January 24, 2023 by lct

[Herr Barnack]

5 hours ago, Kiwimac said:

I’m going to make a wacky suggestion:

 

 If the SD card is the root of all this, perhaps the answer is for Leica to test SD cards before launch and include one in the box of whatever card they approve?

I had that thought a couple of days ago but got distracted from posting it. 

I have read elsewhere that new cameras coming from Leica have a shutter count other than zero due to function checking during inspection.  What cards is Leica using to do their function checks? 

Leica could take it a step further - they could find an SD card that is 100% functional with the M11, contract to have a run of them branded with the Leica logo and include one that has been function tested with that particular M11 as part of the package. 

Quote

... some problems seem to come from uncoded lenses or the management of them by the M11 firmware...

Maybe stick to coded lenses with the M11?  Or get your uncoded M lenses coded? 

Not sure how Leica would make a firmware upgrade that would recognize all the non M lenses that people use (Voigtlander, Zeiss, TT Artisan, Meyer-Optik Gorlitz, et al.).  That could prove to be an enormous amount of work...

Edited January 24, 2023 by Herr Barnack

[jdlaing]

2 minutes ago, Herr Barnack said:

I had that thought a couple of days ago but got distracted from posting it. 

I have read elsewhere that new cameras coming from Leica have a shutter count other than zero due to function checking during inspection.  What cards is Leica using to do their function checks? 

Leica could take it a step further - they could find an SD card that is 100% functional with the M11, contract to have a run of them branded with the Leica logo and include one that has been function tested with that particular M11 as part of the package. 

Is this your first week on the forum?

What cards do you think they are using to do testing in the assembly process based on their recommendations in the user manuals?

 

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[Herr Barnack]

4 minutes ago, jdlaing said:

Is this your first week on the forum?

What cards do you think they are using to do testing in the assembly process based on their recommendations in the user manuals?

 

Sarcasm/arrogance duly noted.  Is a civil attitude beyond your capabilities?

I do not have an M11 user manual to check Leica's recommendation for an SD card to use with the M11.

[charlesphoto99]

16 minutes ago, Herr Barnack said:

I had that thought a couple of days ago but got distracted from posting it. 

I have read elsewhere that new cameras coming from Leica have a shutter count other than zero due to function checking during inspection.  What cards is Leica using to do their function checks? 

Leica could take it a step further - they could find an SD card that is 100% functional with the M11, contract to have a run of them branded with the Leica logo and include one that has been function tested with that particular M11 as part of the package. 

Maybe stick to coded lenses with the M11?  Or get your uncoded M lenses coded? 

Not sure how Leica would make a firmware upgrade that would recognize all the non M lenses that people use (Voigtlander, Zeiss, TT Artisan, Meyer-Optik Gorlitz, et al.).  That could prove to be an enormous amount of work...

I’m sorry, but this is what one calls ‘losing the plot.’ If Leica can’t make a $9k camera body that works with all memory cards on the market, then they have lost the plot. If users excuse that and think that Leica should red dot a card and then sell it at (most likely) 2-3X the price, they’ve lost the plot. If Leica can’t get the basics right (no freezes, instant start time, qc out of the box, etc) then they have no business adding more bells and whistles to the M. 

It’s a hardware defect, either under specced for the function, and/or faulty. Leica most likely know this, but aren’t about to announce it to the world and are hoping that eventually they can come up with a firmware solution and/or replace enough of the faulty ones so the whole thing eventually goes away (and users trade in their 11’s for the 12 because it’s so much better, lol). SD cards, user profiles, uncoded lenses  etc etc are all red herrings imo. 

It does beggar the question - when and where will we start seeing refurbished M11’s as so many are being exchanged? What happens to those otherwise perfectly good bodies? Salvaged for parts?