M11 freeze issues [Merged]

[hdmesa]

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44 minutes ago, Qlan said:

Did you ever get a freeze when only using Leica coded lenses?

Coded lenses have not caused a freeze yet. Earlier in the thread I thought my 50 Cron caused a freeze, but I determined that if I have a freeze with the uncoded lens, perform a reset, then switch to a coded lens, it always freezes the first time the camera is turned on with the coded lens. Then after one more reset, the coded lens will not causes freezes. Changing between coded lenses also does not cause freezes. Only freezes when using the CV 35 1.5 so far.

Tomorrow when I get the 75 1.9, I will be able to determine if it's freezing with all uncoded lenses or just the 35 1.5.

Edited March 30, 2023 by hdmesa

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[lohthx1r]

Hi All, 

Just want to share my experience on this topic.

I had a dozen of freeze during my ownership of a week, latest firmware 1.6.1.

It froze sometimes during startup or during photo-taking, with the below situation/configuration.

1. I don’t own any 3rd party lens.

2. All my lens are Leica 6-but coded lens

3. I tried Sony Tough, Sandisk Extreme Pro (Both UHS-I and UHS-II), Lexar and Samsung SDCards

4. Factory Reset twice

5. Either fully utilise ONLY the internal storage or both (SDCard and Internal Storage) for saving the image file.

Seriously hope Leica and fix this. It is not fair for us consumer to work on a solution for them at the price-point we are paying for this camera.

 

Thank you.

[J S H]

28 minutes ago, hdmesa said:

Coded lenses have not caused a freeze yet. Earlier in the thread I thought my 50 Cron caused a freeze, but I determined that if I have a freeze with the uncoded lens, perform a reset, then switch to a coded lens, it always freezes the first time the camera is turned on with the coded lens. Then after one more reset, the coded lens will not causes freezes. Changing between coded lenses also does not cause freezes. Only freezes when using the CV 35 1.5 so far.

Tomorrow when I get the 75 1.9, I will be able to determine if it's freezing with all uncoded lenses or just the 35 1.5.

Man. What a drag. It's just crazy that you and everyone else affected has to deal with this. Cameras aren't roulette wheels and I do think there is SOMETHING specific causing the freezes. I looked over your list of changed settings vs factory defaults, in an attempt to try and see any differences from my settings. Aside from different custom button/dial settings, the one thing I see, is that I am using internal memory first, then SD. It might be worth changing to IN, then SD as an easy test. You may just have to try and start eliminating potential issues one at a time, and that's an easy one with no compromises. In my experience, the internal memory performs much better than ANY SD card and it's so convenient to just plug in the cable and transfer the images without removing battery and card.

I'm willing to help diagnose things however I can...it would be great if we could get to the bottom of the freezing issues. In my case, 1.6.1 has completely eliminated my freezes and I'm not doing anything special. Power off at 10 min, using almost exclusively uncoded lenses with detection set to Auto and plenty of lens changes, multiple user profiles with different metering, etc, etc. But some setting, or combination of settings must be triggering the freezes. I really don't think it's the lenses though...my hunch is that it's something else.  

[hdmesa]

51 minutes ago, J S H said:

Man. What a drag. It's just crazy that you and everyone else affected has to deal with this. Cameras aren't roulette wheels and I do think there is SOMETHING specific causing the freezes. I looked over your list of changed settings vs factory defaults, in an attempt to try and see any differences from my settings. Aside from different custom button/dial settings, the one thing I see, is that I am using internal memory first, then SD. It might be worth changing to IN, then SD as an easy test. You may just have to try and start eliminating potential issues one at a time, and that's an easy one with no compromises. In my experience, the internal memory performs much better than ANY SD card and it's so convenient to just plug in the cable and transfer the images without removing battery and card.

I'm willing to help diagnose things however I can...it would be great if we could get to the bottom of the freezing issues. In my case, 1.6.1 has completely eliminated my freezes and I'm not doing anything special. Power off at 10 min, using almost exclusively uncoded lenses with detection set to Auto and plenty of lens changes, multiple user profiles with different metering, etc, etc. But some setting, or combination of settings must be triggering the freezes. I really don't think it's the lenses though...my hunch is that it's something else.  

Thanks for that. I feel like I'm getting closer to figuring it out. You mentioning the power-off: I need to go back and try the 35 1.5 again but go back to sleep settings to being off. I forgot I had turned them back on with the 35 1.5 and was testing that. I really should be writing this all down as I go, lol.

I'll try the internal memory only next, thank you!

[Edit] – Turning sleep back off did not stop freezes with the 35 1.5, so I can rule out the sleep setting. Next up, testing internal memory only.

Edited March 30, 2023 by hdmesa

[hdmesa]

46 minutes ago, lohthx1r said:

Hi All, 

Just want to share my experience on this topic.

I had a dozen of freeze during my ownership of a week, latest firmware 1.6.1.

It froze sometimes during startup or during photo-taking, with the below situation/configuration.

1. I don’t own any 3rd party lens.

2. All my lens are Leica 6-but coded lens

3. I tried Sony Tough, Sandisk Extreme Pro (Both UHS-I and UHS-II), Lexar and Samsung SDCards

4. Factory Reset twice

5. Either fully utilise ONLY the internal storage or both (SDCard and Internal Storage) for saving the image file.

Seriously hope Leica and fix this. It is not fair for us consumer to work on a solution for them at the price-point we are paying for this camera.

 

Thank you.

Sorry to hear that. Do you mind sharing what the assembly month and year are on the outer paper box that your M11 came in? Mine was made September 2022. If I get mine exchanged for another one, I'm going to try and get one with a more recent manufacture date if possible – unless yours is a much newer one, in which case all bets are off.

@Qlan, can you post what your assembly month and date were? Not that it may make any difference at all, but would be interesting to know.

[J S H]

9 minutes ago, hdmesa said:

Sorry to hear that. Do you mind sharing what the assembly month and year are on the outer paper box that your M11 came in? Mine was made September 2022. If I get mine exchanged for another one, I'm going to try and get one with a more recent manufacture date if possible – unless yours is a much newer one, in which case all bets are off.

@Qlan, can you post what your assembly month and date were? Not that it may make any difference at all, but would be interesting to know.

For what it's worth, mine was manufactured August 2022 and purchased from Camera West in early January. I'm thinking a 4-5 month old camera may actually be a pretty fresh one? I could be totally wrong though. It would be good to get more data, but it's probably not going to reveal much, since mine is working fine and was manufactured a month prior to yours. 

[Qlan]

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2 minutes ago, J S H said:

For what it's worth, mine was manufactured August 2022 and purchased from Camera West in early January. I'm thinking a 4-5 month old camera may actually be a pretty fresh one? I could be totally wrong though. It would be good to get more data, but it's probably not going to reveal much, since mine is working fine and was manufactured a month prior to yours. 

My first 2 M11 were also manufactured in August 2022 (maybe the first one was in June or July, can't remember). Now my third one is manufactured in October 2022. Fingers crossed, haven't had time to shoot too much yet.

Edited March 30, 2023 by Qlan

[J S H]

8 hours ago, hdmesa said:

Update: After flawlessly using both the 35 and 50 Cron, I switch back to the CV 35 1.5. Got freezes after the first few off/on cycles. Reset the camera the put on the 50 Cron. Had to reset it one more time, now it's ok.

So I pulled off the CV lens and compared it to the Cron. Is it possible that Voigtlander put their engraving too close to where the 6-bit code goes? This doesn't confuse my SL2-S with M-Adapter-L, but it could be messing with the code reader on the M11.

I looked at 5 of my Voigtlander lenses. The engraving is in the same place on all of them and I'm virtually positive that it is outside the area of the 6 bit reader. 

[hdmesa]

Thank you both.

Using internal memory only – turned everything back on like lens detection and power management. So far I can't provoke the same freeze on startup that I was able to before (by dismounting and remounting the 35 1.5). Also switching back and forth between coded and uncoded seems ok so far.

Will report back on how it goes from here. If the freezes are completely eliminated by using internal memory, then hopefully the new Delkin Black card coming tomorrow will work better than the SanDisk and Sony Tough. As strange as it sounds, it looks like the combination of coded lens plus my current SD cards work fine, but my uncoded 35 1.5 doesn't work with these SD cards. Weird.

5 minutes ago, J S H said:

I looked at 5 of my Voigtlander lenses. The engraving is in the same place on all of them and I'm virtually positive that it is outside the area of the 6 bit reader. 

Thanks for checking. Do they look like they are in the same place as the 35 1.5 that I posted? Wanting to make sure the engraving is not slightly closer to the 6-bit code area on my particular copy and/or all the 35 1.5s.

[Qlan]

Just FYI, I had freezes when only using the internal memory... It really seems like there's no one single set of settings that eliminates all freezes (at startup).

[J S H]

6 minutes ago, hdmesa said:

Thank you both.

Using internal memory only – turned everything back on like lens detection and power management. So far I can't provoke the same freeze on startup that I was able to before (by dismounting and remounting the 35 1.5). Also switching back and forth between coded and uncoded seems ok so far.

Will report back on how it goes from here. If the freezes are completely eliminated by using internal memory, then hopefully the new Delkin Black card coming tomorrow will work better than the SanDisk and Sony Tough. As strange as it sounds, it looks like the combination of coded lens plus my current SD cards work fine, but my uncoded 35 1.5 doesn't work with these SD cards. Weird.

Thanks for checking. Do they look like they are in the same place as the 35 1.5 that I posted? Wanting to make sure the engraving is not slightly closer to the 6-bit code area on my particular copy and/or all the 35 1.5s.

Yes, the placement seems very consistent on all of the lenses I looked at and it matches the image you posted. 

[hdmesa]

2 minutes ago, Qlan said:

Just FYI, I had freezes when only using the internal memory... It really seems like there's no one single set of settings that eliminates all freezes (at startup).

Except for me the freezes are only with the non-coded lenses.

1 minute ago, J S H said:

Yes, the placement seems very consistent on all of the lenses I looked at and it matches the image you posted. 

Thanks again. Really appreciate it. If my 75 1.9 that arrives tomorrow also causes freezes with my current SD cards, then I can rule out the 35 1.5 as a rouge element (pun). Will go from there...

[J S H]

5 minutes ago, hdmesa said:

Except for me the freezes are only with the non-coded lenses.

Thanks again. Really appreciate it. If my 75 1.9 that arrives tomorrow also causes freezes with my current SD cards, then I can rule out the 35 1.5 as a rouge element (pun). Will go from there...

I'm convinced it's not the lenses. I have 8 Voigtlander lenses and change them quite regularly. None of them have any coding. I looked at two more of mine and the engraving is in the same place. The last one is currently shooting a long exposure on film, so it's not accessible at the moment. I only have two coded lenses, a 90 macro and 135 APO and I don't use either of them very often, so almost all of the time, my camera has an uncoded lens in place. 

[hdmesa]

8 minutes ago, J S H said:

I'm convinced it's not the lenses. I have 8 Voigtlander lenses and change them quite regularly. None of them have any coding. I looked at two more of mine and the engraving is in the same place. The last one is currently shooting a long exposure on film, so it's not accessible at the moment. I only have two coded lenses, a 90 macro and 135 APO and I don't use either of them very often, so almost all of the time, my camera has an uncoded lens in place. 

I agree, the odds are slim to none it's something wrong with the 35 1.5, and trying the 75 1.9 tomorrow should prove it. After that, it's just a matter of trying the new Delkin Black card that will also arrive tomorrow. If that works, I'll order a few more and call this solved. If it doesn't work, then either I give up and return the M11 or try one more time and exchange it.

[lct]

3 hours ago, hdmesa said:

my uncoded 35 1.5 doesn't work with these SD cards

May i ask if you tried to hand-code this lens?

[hdmesa]

3 hours ago, lct said:

May i ask if you tried to hand-code this lens?

I wanted to continue testing it uncoded with the new memory card that arrives today.

I’m not against coding it, but I also want to have an M11 that will work with uncoded lenses when using SD cards. It’s still strange to me what I found so far. There is something different about how my M11 functions with “uncoded + SD” vs “coded + SD”. 

Edited March 30, 2023 by hdmesa

[lct]

I have set up a user profile for uncoded lenses when i don't want any Leica code to apply. It is based on lens detection off which remains off as long as i don't mount a coded lens instead. I don't know if this can be of any use to you but i can also show the flange of my hand-coded Nokton 35/1.4SC v2 which works like a charm as a coded lens under FW 1.6.1.

[hdmesa]

Update:

Delkin Black UHS-II 64gb card showed up first today, so I tested this card to rule out issues with my Sandisk and Sony Tough.

So far the Delkin Black seems to run with zero freezes on startup when using the 35 1.5. All settings were changed back to my original pre-testing preferences including storage management of IN=SD, power saving mode on, lens detection on, etc. I've tried multiple dismounts and remounting of the 35 1.5 to try and trigger the freeze as had been the case before with no problem.

I'll report back if I get another freeze, but as of now, this seems to be the solution for my M11's freezing.

The question that remains for me is why my other SD cards do not cause freezes with coded lenses but do cause freezes with uncoded ones. It must be that when the code reader on the mount detects an uncoded lens, it access the SD card for some reason, either a routine check or it writes an invisible reference file as to the lens being uncoded that is not necessary when using a coded lens. I really don't have any way to know, I can only speculate.

I think the camera in general wasn't working as well with my other cards because after switching to internal memory, I noticed an increase in the responsiveness of the live view image and camera operation in general – this responsiveness seems the same with the Delkin Black.

I will report this all to Leica to have it added to the open case on my previous M11.

End result: my M11 simply isn't compatible with my other SD cards:

• 🚫 Sandisk UHS-II in 64 and 128 capacity
•  🚫 Sony Tough in UHS-I and UHS-II in 128 and 256 capacities

 

All the above cards work flawlessly with my SL2-S and previous cameras, the R5 and GFX100S, so perhaps Leica could improve the M11 firmware to work with a wider range of SD cards. I don't really care about the Sony Tough compatibility as my M10-R and Q2 didn't like them either, but the M11 should be able to work flawlessly with the Sandisk UHS-II cards.

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[hdmesa]

Sadly I must report my first freeze using the Delkin Black card with the CV 35 1.5, so this is NOT solved for me.

This M11 will be going back for refund or exchange, I haven't yet decided which.

[Qlan]

3 minutes ago, hdmesa said:

Sadly I must report my first freeze using the Delkin Black card with the CV 35 1.5, so this is NOT solved for me.

This M11 will be going back for refund or exchange, I haven't yet decided which.

😢 Last resort is hand coding your lenses...