M11 freeze issues [Merged]

[hdmesa]

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Had the freeze on startup return today – but this time right after a battery change (right after a low battery warning). Two battery pull resets resulted in the same freeze. For the third, I removed the SD card and reinserted it, then the reset worked, and the camera is now operating normally. Will report back if it happens again.

[Was using an uncoded Voigtlander M lens with a manual M profile selected – had been working normally before the battery change.]

Edited April 16, 2023 by hdmesa

[Qlan]

34 minutes ago, hdmesa said:

Had the freeze on startup return today – but this time right after a battery change (right after a low battery warning). Two battery pull resets resulted in the same freeze. For the third, I removed the SD card and reinserted it, then the reset worked, and the camera is now operating normally. Will report back if it happens again.

[Was using an uncoded Voigtlander M lens with a manual M profile selected – had been working normally before the battery change.]

  This might be a battery issue. There were reports of people on this forum having freezes when a "capricious" battery was inserted into the camera after a full charge. I had that issue with one of my first 2 M11. Then didn't happen with the others.

[hdmesa]

10 minutes ago, Qlan said:

  This might be a battery issue. There were reports of people on this forum having freezes when a "capricious" battery was inserted into the camera after a full charge. I had that issue with one of my first 2 M11. Then didn't happen with the others.

Thanks, I'm wondering the same thing. I'm going to mark this battery so I know which one it is out of my three to see if it happens with it again.

Edited April 16, 2023 by hdmesa

[hdmesa]

28 minutes ago, Somchai said:

Would you consider a 5th one?

It’s likely a firmware fix that needs to happen at this point. Leica is working on it. 

[Qlan]

Btw, it's not that the first 3 M11 you got are faulty, but instead it's the firmware pre-1.6.1 that caused a lot of freezes on startup. It's possible 1.6.1 fixed them (except the Uncoded case), so the first 3 M11 (and my first 2) would work too after 1.6.1. 

[hdmesa]

1 hour ago, Qlan said:

Btw, it's not that the first 3 M11 you got are faulty, but instead it's the firmware pre-1.6.1 that caused a lot of freezes on startup. It's possible 1.6.1 fixed them (except the Uncoded case), so the first 3 M11 (and my first 2) would work too after 1.6.1. 

My first one was a vertically misaligned rangefinder. 1.6.1 has not completely stopped the freezes – but it has reduced it to only freezing after a battery swap when the power level has gone down into the red.

[Qlan]

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8 minutes ago, hdmesa said:

My first one was a vertically misaligned rangefinder. 1.6.1 has not completely stopped the freezes – but it has reduced it to only freezing after a battery swap when the power level has gone down into the red.

Ok, so apart from your first M11, it's likely (IMO) that there's no hardware issue (in the body, your new battery might be faulty). It's all software bugs. So exchanging bodies was probably not what solved your issues. Same with me, I think my first 2 M11s have no hardware issues, if our hypothesis on freezes and 1.6.1 is correct.

This was in response to your quote: "Took me four M11s to get one that worked without freezing"

Edited April 17, 2023 by Qlan

[hdmesa]

2 minutes ago, Qlan said:

Ok, so apart from your first M11, it's likely (IMO) that there's no hardware issue (in the body, your new battery might be faulty). It's all software bugs. So exchanging bodies was probably not what solved your issues. Same with me, I think my first 2 M11s have no hardware issues, if our hypothesis on freezes and 1.6.1 is correct.

This was in response to your quote: "Took me four M11s to get one that worked without freezing"

It could be my M11 #2 and #3 were like my current one – or it could be they would have kept freezing under the old firmware leading to bricking. Bricking is an unlikely outcome, but that was my concern at the time.

But I understand your point. I could have kept the 2nd M11 and possibly been in the same situation I'm in now with my 4th M11. But I also would have been incredibly irritated to have been trying to use the camera all this time since the freezes on startup were fairly regular.

[TheEyesHaveIt]

This happened to me today for the first time in a long time (I’m running the latest firmware). Had to pop the battery and SD card out twice before it booted up properly. Scared me for a second as I have a vacation coming up! Strange to see it crop up again since generally my M11 has been flawless (knock on wood).

[Henners]

Happened to me the other day, locked up and I had to pop the battery. No big deal as luckily it wasn't an important moment but still worrying that it occurs and hasn't been ironed out fully yet. Fingers crossed for the next firmware update.

[Qlan]

Yeah people are yelling victory too soon as always...

[hdmesa]

1 hour ago, Qlan said:

Yeah people are yelling victory too soon as always...

LOL, me first among them 🤐

• Freezes from "Uncoded" were seemingly fixed for me by using a manual M profile with my Voigtlander lenses under 1.6.1 – about 10 days without a freeze
• Two days ago, it froze after a battery change while using a Voigtlander lens
• Today it froze while using the same battery with a Leica 6-bit coded lens – suspect a bad battery

I've switched to another battery. If the freezing stops, I'm going to see about getting a replacement for the bad battery. If the freezes continue, then all bets are off again. If that happens, I will have to either patiently wait for a firmware update or just return it and then might as well wait for the M11-P or get an M11M.

Edited April 19, 2023 by hdmesa

[elmars]

The M11 M has basically the same firmware as the M11. 

[hdmesa]

14 hours ago, elmars said:

The M11 M has basically the same firmware as the M11. 

But perhaps not the exact same electronics.

Edited April 20, 2023 by hdmesa

[elmars]

It is the same camera, electronics included. It only has a bigger buffer and a sensor without Bayer pattern. 

[hdmesa]

16 hours ago, elmars said:

It is the same camera, electronics included. It only has a bigger buffer and a sensor without Bayer pattern. 

They could have updated any of the internal electronic components including the main board. But hey, we'll know for sure it's the same if people start reporting freezes with the M11M. Current M11 firmware has not eliminated them for all of us.

[Petrichor]

Have owned and enjoyed the M11 for over 12 months now.

Picked up my New Summilux (2023) 50mm f1.4 on Thursday and had a number of freezes since.

By freeze I mean simply no response to shutter button. Turn off, remove battery, turn on. Works usually although not always. 

A few times I reset the camera because nothing seemed to work.

Then all seems fine.
 

Frustrating and clear that some firmware tweaks are required.

[hdmesa]

23 hours ago, Petrichor said:

Have owned and enjoyed the M11 for over 12 months now.

Picked up my New Summilux (2023) 50mm f1.4 on Thursday and had a number of freezes since.

By freeze I mean simply no response to shutter button. Turn off, remove battery, turn on. Works usually although not always. 

A few times I reset the camera because nothing seemed to work.

Then all seems fine.
 

Frustrating and clear that some firmware tweaks are required.

Lens changes are a prime culprit. Some of us suspect that the lens detection module and/or the part of the firmware related to lens detection is at fault.

Over the last several months, I have reported to Leica about my freezes (over multiple copies of the M11), and they said they were working on a fix. However, my most recent freeze report of changing from an uncoded lens to a Leica coded lens causing a freeze (requiring two battery pulls to get it working again) was met with a shrug. "Once you can make the freeze reproducible, we can come up with a fix." Really? Oh, ok. So how am I supposed to make a freeze that is intermittent become repeatable every time? I'm sorry, but F that. This tells me they are NOT working on a fix for freezes on startup and are clueless about what is causing them. I sold mine right after I read that reply from Leica support.

@Qlan as FYI – I don't think we have a fix coming. Ever.

[jpark114]

I really wanted to love my M11.  But this freezing issue is so frequent nowadays that I'm starting to lose my love of M11.  With my recent M6 acquisition, I'm more and more into film photography, and I can say the M11 freezing issue has contributed to this.

I'm now considering whether I should just sell it and forget about it or try to keep it awaiting for an ultimate filmware solution that's gonna fix everything...

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[DadDadDaddyo]

Well, let's consider it this way: when my M10M was new it froze on me several times. Didn't think much of it at the time, switched it to the shutoff position, popped the base plate, popped the battery, reassemble, good to go. I took it as something that happened sometimes. 

Thing is, I literally can't remember the M10M freezing on me at any time in my admittedly cloudy somewhat-near-term memory by which I mean, in the last 6 or 9 months, or maybe a year. 

I've upgraded the firmware anytime a new version has been available. 

So, I'm not ready to say the M11 will always and forever freeze on people. It's looking pretty likely that even if a limited number of factors are at the root of the freezing, the number of inputs that can cause it to freeze is greater, naturally, as (I suspect) they're simply variations on a few themes. 

For each owner who loses heart and sells it off, there's a ground feeder like me ready to snap up a barely-used copy at a barn-burner of a price, because, y'know, they all freeze and probably always will...

So I thank you!

(What we need now is to get a threaded forum meme going about the M11M, y'know, about how we don't like how it "renders...., um, gray tones, yeah, that's it!" Heh heh... They'll be dropping like dominoes!)

Edited April 27, 2023 by DadDadDaddyo