M11 freeze issues [Merged]

[lct]

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Edited March 28 by lct

[hdmesa]

On 3/24/2024 at 6:47 AM, Smogg said:

Today my camera behaved perfectly on a walk, whereas on the previous two walks it was a real nightmare with freezing. Before today's walk, I did Reset and restored all the settings manually, rather than from the profile. Maybe this is a necessary periodic procedure?🤷‍♂️

A complete reset including user profiles cleared up freezing + DNG issue introduced to my M11M by firmware 2.0.2. Any firmware update that's problematic may benefit from a full reset.

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[Smogg]

1 hour ago, hdmesa said:

A complete reset including user profiles cleared up freezing + DNG issue introduced to my M11M by firmware 2.0.2. Any firmware update that's problematic may benefit from a full reset.

This did not completely eliminate the problems. Yesterday the camera corrupted the file again and then froze. The damaged file was the first in a series at high speed, the camera clicked the shutter several times after it and froze

[jjesp]

Instead of waiting for firmware releases coming and going for the rest of your M11 life time - why not just send your camera in for an exchange? Leica states that only very few M11 owners have this freezing problem. So then it can be solved by having a new camera send back to you. Simple! Do it before warranty is over. I simply wouldn't accept having a camera in this price range (or even a much cheaper price range), not working. I have learned my lesson since the same problem is on my old Q 116. Has been there from the beginning to this day. And I lost important images in the moment to many times.... I really regret not having my money back or having it replaced by Leica with a camera that works as you are entitled to. 

I am beginning to loose faith in Leica products. I even talked to a guy that now have had freezing and corrupt DNG files on his new SL3. Come on... I know every manufacturer has faulty items once in a while. They fix it or you get a new if they can't. All fine. But here we begin to see a pattern that is not good! Just wait for a new firmware, coming next month - or year.... It is not ok. If it is a bug in a new firmware version - you fix it in weeks. Not months or years - or never.... Think about it. How can we accept it?

[lct]

31 minutes ago, jjesp said:

[...] Just wait for a new firmware, coming next month - or year.... It is not ok. If it is a bug in a new firmware version - you fix it in weeks. Not months or years - or never.... Think about it. How can we accept it?

Because this is what we've been doing since there are digital cameras at Leica. Some of us complain, others don't, most wait for the next fw update more or less quietly.

[jeri]

Unfortunately my camera started to develop freezing symptoms. It's happened to me at least four times in the last three weeks. The phenomenon occurs when viewing photos that have just been taken. Of course removing the camera battery from its place solves the problem. By the way, my default camera setting is screen completely off. Also, the bluetooth and wi-fi are also turned off.

In the meantime, and after I had no complaints during the year and a half that I had the camera in my possession - except for two times when the camera froze, and the information that was stored on the memory card went Kaput (although luckily I was able to recover the lost photos again) - I reformatted the memory card as usual, and in addition I also formatted the camera .

By the way, the memory card is the 'Kingston Canvas React Plus SDXC UHS-II U3 V60 HD/4K' and it resides in the camera, from the first day it was received.

I might add and hope that 17 years from now, my Leica M11 will be as faultless as my legendary mother Leica M8 is today.

 

Edited March 29 by jeri

[lct]

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27 minutes ago, jeri said:

[...]

By the way, the memory card is the 'Kingston Canvas React Plus SDXC UHS-II U3 V60 HD/4K' and it resides in the camera, from the first day it was received.

I might add and hope that 17 years from now, my Leica M11 will be as faultless as my legendary mother Leica M8 is today.

Did you try SD Memory Card Formatter? Works fine to format my Sandisk and Sony cards on Leica, Panasonic, Ricoh, Sigma, and Sony cameras but i have no experience with Kingston cards sorry. SD Card Formatter is free though so there is no harm to try it.

Edited March 29 by lct

[Big John]

101 pages of comments on a major technical issue - on a high end, expensive product. The freezing issue has completely put me off an M11/P. Not just because of technical fault but also because I don’t want to feel like I am being taken for a ride by a company that should be standing by its customers and replacing all faulty cameras or swiftly addressing the problem. And I am a Leica (SL) owner who loves the brand. 

Edited March 29 by Big John

[Malabito]

I really wonder how leica hasn't come with a statement about this issue.... the internet is plagued with unhappy users...

[hdmesa]

10 hours ago, Smogg said:

This did not completely eliminate the problems. Yesterday the camera corrupted the file again and then froze. The damaged file was the first in a series at high speed, the camera clicked the shutter several times after it and froze

Sorry to hear that. Have you tried turning the new dust protection feature off? I also reformatted my card (again) with SD Formatter just in case. I haven’t tried high speed shooting.

[charlesphoto99]

1 hour ago, lct said:

Did you try SD Memory Card Formatter? Works fine to format my Sandisk and Sony cards on Leica, Panasonic, Ricoh, Sigma, and Sony cameras but i have no experience with Kingston cards sorry. SD Card Formatter is free though so there is no harm to try it.

Once again, considering cameras 1/10, even 1/20th and 1/30th the cost of a Leica M11 format cards faultlessly in camera, there should be absolutely zero reason to have to turn to a third party software program. It's patently ridiculous. It was one thing to have to do battery resets with my M8, the first of a generation, totally another to do it with a body almost 20 years on and in its fifth or so generation. Leica need to figure this out before moving on to the M12, which is inevitably coming as they shill M11 variants. 

It would be interesting to hear from a user(s) if they essentially set up their M11 like it was an M6 and if they still have issues i.e. no profiles, high speed shooting, lens recognition off, EVF off, auto this or that off etc etc. Just bare bones manual aperture shutter speed and iso to see if they still have these freezing, lost DNG issues. IMO it's a race condition, either due to faulty firmware, hardware, or a combo. Some may experience it, some may not, but it's there. 

[lct]

Just now, charlesphoto99 said:

Once again, considering cameras 1/10, even 1/20th and 1/30th the cost of a Leica M11 format cards faultlessly in camera, there should be absolutely zero reason to have to turn to a third party software program. It's patently ridiculous. [...]

If it works it is patently 😉 good enough for me the same way as it did on all my cameras in 10+ years.

[lldd]

I also wonder if these issues will in the long run reduce the value of M11s in the resale market.  Who wants to take the risk of buying a used camera only to find out that it is defective.  I've seen a few used ones on sale, and although the price is attractive, the risk to reward ratio makes it a non-starter.

[Smogg]

1 hour ago, hdmesa said:

Sorry to hear that. Have you tried turning the new dust protection feature off? I also reformatted my card (again) with SD Formatter just in case. I haven’t tried high speed shooting.

I haven't experimented with different dust protection settings, but I did shoot on the internal memory without using liveview.

Edited March 29 by Smogg

[Smogg]

36 minutes ago, lldd said:

I also wonder if these issues will in the long run reduce the value of M11s in the resale market.  Who wants to take the risk of buying a used camera only to find out that it is defective.  I've seen a few used ones on sale, and although the price is attractive, the risk to reward ratio makes it a non-starter.

I think that in the future market the firmware version will be important. For example, I would, without hesitation, exchange any of my 2 M11s with firmware 2.0.2 for an M11 with firmware 1.6.1 with an additional payment of €500

[gtownby]

3 hours ago, jeri said:

Unfortunately my camera started to develop freezing symptoms. It's happened to me at least four times in the last three weeks. The phenomenon occurs when viewing photos that have just been taken. Of course removing the camera battery from its place solves the problem. By the way, my default camera setting is screen completely off. Also, the bluetooth and wi-fi are also turned off.

In the meantime, and after I had no complaints during the year and a half that I had the camera in my possession - except for two times when the camera froze, and the information that was stored on the memory card went Kaput (although luckily I was able to recover the lost photos again) - I reformatted the memory card as usual, and in addition I also formatted the camera .

By the way, the memory card is the 'Kingston Canvas React Plus SDXC UHS-II U3 V60 HD/4K' and it resides in the camera, from the first day it was received.

I might add and hope that 17 years from now, my Leica M11 will be as faultless as my legendary mother Leica M8 is today.

 

Thanks for mentioning the M8. I was a Leica wannabe when it was released and I watched the IR issue unfold in real time by monitoring the bulletin boards back then. (It started with one guy who took photos at a wedding and the men’s tuxedos looked purple.) It didn’t take long for Leica to recognize the problem and come up with a solution: give everyone some IR cut filters in different sizes. I ended up buying the M8 (with my free filters).

[jeri]

4 hours ago, lct said:

 

 

4 hours ago, lct said:

Did you try SD Memory Card Formatter? Works fine to format my Sandisk and Sony cards on Leica, Panasonic, Ricoh, Sigma, and Sony cameras but i have no experience with Kingston cards sorry. SD Card Formatter is free though so there is no harm to try it.

Certainly, SD Memory Card Formatter is an integral part of my work routine.

Edited March 29 by jeri

[jeri]

56 minutes ago, gtownby said:

Thanks for mentioning the M8. I was a Leica wannabe when it was released and I watched the IR issue unfold in real time by monitoring the bulletin boards back then. (It started with one guy who took photos at a wedding and the men’s tuxedos looked purple.) It didn’t take long for Leica to recognize the problem and come up with a solution: give everyone some IR cut filters in different sizes. I ended up buying the M8 (with my free filters).

The IR issue in the Leica M8 cameras has never been a problem for me, since most of my photography work with it was in black and white, where the disadvantage became an advantage. My lack of color photographs with the M8 was not a problem either, as I am equipped with the appropriate filters, which I sometimes don't need either.

[charlesphoto99]

54 minutes ago, jeri said:

 

Certainly, SD Memory Card Formatter is an integral part of my work routine.

But it's not an integral part of, say, people shooting a Canon Elph, so why should it have to be an integral part of using a $10k Leica body? Nothing more than a feel good crutch that may or may not have an effect due to anecdotal experience.  

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[Smogg]

25 minutes ago, charlesphoto99 said:

But it's not an integral part of, say, people shooting a Canon Elph, so why should it have to be an integral part of using a $10k Leica body? Nothing more than a feel good crutch that may or may not have an effect due to anecdotal experience.  

We have no choice. Nobody except Leica produces rangefinders, there is no competition, so we have to pay an extremely high price and get the quality they give, whether we like it or not.

 

Curious, do their watches work normally?😂

Edited March 29 by Smogg