M11 freeze issues [Merged]

[Warton]

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1 hour ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

I had one freeze with 16.1 this morning.  Power on, and the shutter stayed closed. Buttons were unresponsive. Switched  power recycle fixed it.  Didn't reoccur.

That’s what this forever-open-style shutter scared me. Every time I turn on the camera I was anxiously waiting to hear the shutter opening sound which occurred usually within less than 1 second. 
It really provoked my nerves and sometimes my heart missed a beat when I didn’t hear the sound only a few moments later did I realize I was holding a M10-R instead, which doesn’t open the curtain when it’s turned on.

I love my M11 on every aspect but I just don’t understand why opening the shutter upon turning on is necessary. My M10-R does the exposure metering too and it’s also accurate, and it has live view as well. What’s the rationale behind this eternally-exposing-sensor strategy?

[IkarusJohn]

49 minutes ago, Warton said:

... I love my M11 on every aspect but I just don’t understand why opening the shutter upon turning on is necessary. My M10-R does the exposure metering too and it’s also accurate, and it has live view as well. What’s the rationale behind this eternally-exposing-sensor strategy?

If you read back through the (very long) thread on the M11, you'll see this discussed a lot.

With your M10-R, there is a grey band across the centre of the shutter blades (a white dot on the shutter curtains of the MP and M6 film cameras).  Just in the throat of the lens mount, there is a back facing sensor, reading the light reflected off the shutter - that gives the centre weighted meter reading.

With the M11, Leica decided to do away with the backward facing sensor, and to have all readings with the shutter open by default.  So, you have spot/centre-weighted/multi-field metering at all times (where you only have those options with your M10-R in live-view and with the Visoflex), with multi-field by default.

Some of us prefer the M10 approach, with the shutter closed and the old centre-weighted reading off the shutter as the default.  Others like the new system.

I blame Andy.

Edited March 5, 2023 by IkarusJohn

[Henners]

I wish they had kept the back facing sensor and grey band on the shutter and then put an option in the menu system that would allow metering type (sensor or shutter). I like the more advanced metering of the M11 but having come from the more traditional ways of metering, I'm totally fine at translating what the meter is telling me depending on the scene so would prefer to revert back to that over the multiple shutter clicks when taking photos.

Edited March 6, 2023 by Henners

[don daniel]

I have been using a Sony Tough SDXCII 64GB (300MB/s) with 1.6.0 and now with 1.6.1 and have never had a freeze. 

[Mateusz]

For me unfortunately freezes still occur even on 1.6.1

I noticed that they mostly occur when M11 heats up. I tend to take a lot of photos and I'm pretty fast - camera freezes pretty much only after taking around 200 photos. 

This is my second M11. First one was often locking up right on startup and thankfully Leica replaced it. 

I've.tried different brands, versions, and speeds of SD cards. Lockups for me happen on all of them but only after camera has been used for a bit and heated up a bit. 

Still fingers crossed future updates will eventually resolve it.

[don daniel]

So it freezes when it heats up. 🤪

[Stef63]

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3 minutes ago, Mateusz said:

I've.tried different brands, versions, and speeds of SD cards. Lockups for me happen on all of them but only after camera has been used for a bit and heated up a bit. 

Still fingers crossed future updates will eventually resolve it.

Do you experience the freeze also with the internal memory only and no card in the SD slot?

Also you say the M11 “heats up”.  What do you mean by this?  Does the camera feels hot?  Never experienced this.

[Mateusz]

Yeah, freezes happen no matter if it's SD or internal. Also doesn't matter what type or brand SD is.

What i mean by heating up is that it becomes warmer. Not super hot, just warm like any other camera does when it's in use. Especially on the right side - battery warms quite a lot and maybe that's somehow affecting the performance. 

[DadDadDaddyo]

There seem to be multiple scenarios that folks have seen that have resulted in a freeze, but it doesn't seem clear to me that a freeze upon start-up and a freeze under heavy use are necessarily the same. Same outcome, but different root causes, I'd bet. 

That said, there does seem to be something about the write speed of the sd card in use. What questions should we be asking?

My first question to the poster with the hot camera would be about what his settings are regarding internal and sd storage? Is he writing the same file to two locations? Using the two storage pools sequentially? Or writing differing file types to the two locations?

Each of those use cases imposes different buffering requirements upon the system. If the write speed capability of the two storage locations is different, for example, the body would have to contend with that. 

I don't know; in the scenario of writing the same file to two locations, are those writes simultaneous or sequential? I haven't played with it to figure out.

All the above are questions in the use case surrounding heavy use. I don't think they'd apply in the powering-on use case, unless the system does something to sniff out attached storage pools on startup. We don't really have details about the boot-up sequence and what goes on. 

Does anyone know details of the boot up sequence? I assume it includes a POST (Power On Self Test) of sorts, but does anyone on the forum know what that entails?

[Mateusz]

My answer is that no matter what the sessions are, freeze still happens. I've tried different resolutions, writing to both internal and SD, only internal, only SD... Different meterings, different lenses, different batteries, different cards, different shutter settings, LV on and off, visoflex no visoflex... I tried all "home" remedies possible. Freezing happens only few dozen minutes into the sessions when camera is warm. That's the only thing I can notice that triggers the freezing.

[Lee S]

8 hours ago, Mateusz said:

My answer is that no matter what the sessions are, freeze still happens. I've tried different resolutions, writing to both internal and SD, only internal, only SD... Different meterings, different lenses, different batteries, different cards, different shutter settings, LV on and off, visoflex no visoflex... I tried all "home" remedies possible. Freezing happens only few dozen minutes into the sessions when camera is warm. That's the only thing I can notice that triggers the freezing.

Sorry to hear about your problems with the camera, I hope you can find a permanent fix. 

Just curious why you have not returned it back to Leica as faulty under warranty?

I hope Leica are not brushing it off, seriously considering an M11 but would be put off if Leica didn’t want to help if my new camera experienced the same issues.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Lee S

[M11 for me]

vor 9 Stunden schrieb don daniel:

I have been using a Sony Tough SDXCII 64GB (300MB/s) with 1.6.0 and now with 1.6.1 and have never had a freeze. 

Most users never experienced freezes anyway. Within over a year with my M11 I had 2 incidences and I did not think of that at all at the time it happened until I came across this thread. I think that there is no software that is without any fault. That is why it did not upset me when something was blocked one time.

But certainly we see here fully different cases. That is a big pitty for people who are affected. There is no doubt about that. But in many cases we can read here that Leica gave them a replacement. That is fair then. There should be no one not to buy this wonderful camera. 

 

[Mateusz]

8 hours ago, Lee S said:

Sorry to hear about your problems with the camera, I hope you can find a permanent fix. 

Just curious why you have not returned it back to Leica as faulty under warranty?

I hope Leica are not brushing it off, seriously considering an M11 but would be put off if Leica didn’t want to help if my new camera experienced the same issues.

I got replacement already, this is a second one i got and it's been a huge improvement over the first one. Seems to me like either it's a firmware update solution or it's some sort of inherit design flaw which cannot be changed (like memory being too close to warm battery etc) so for now I'm waiting for Leica to try to solve it through firmware update. It's really hurtful but M11 overall is an unreliable camera in my experience so for now i use it mostly just for my personal projects and i use my other systems for work.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Mateusz

[IzelPhotography]

11 minutes ago, Mateusz said:

I got replacement already, this is a second one i got and it's been a huge improvement over the first one. Seems to me like either it's a firmware update solution or it's some sort of inherit design flaw which cannot be changed (like memory being too close to warm battery etc) so for now I'm waiting for Leica to try to solve it through firmware update. It's really hurtful but M11 overall is an unreliable camera in my experience so for now i use it mostly just for my personal projects and i use my other systems for work.

If anything, a faulty part or maybe firmware but very unlikely to be faulty design otherwise we'd all be experiencing it and a lot of people are experiencing zero problems. Seems an odd, hard one to resolve. 

For myself, I've never had the camera freeze after the first couple of days when I was using a memory card it didn't like. Since changing that, and now using internal memory, I've never had any problems and I rattle off a lot of shots at times when capturing running, hiking shots under continuous shooting etc. Flipping from one user profile to another It just works.

There was a spell when the Visoflex 2 wouldn't auto engage without hitting the FN (Live View Button). Hasn't happened recently though.

[Photoworks]

Some memory cards really get hot on load. i have noticed it in a few cameras

[jakontil]

8 hours ago, IzelPhotography said:

If anything, a faulty part or maybe firmware but very unlikely to be faulty design otherwise we'd all be experiencing it and a lot of people are experiencing zero problems. Seems an odd, hard one to resolve. 

For myself, I've never had the camera freeze after the first couple of days when I was using a memory card it didn't like. Since changing that, and now using internal memory, I've never had any problems and I rattle off a lot of shots at times when capturing running, hiking shots under continuous shooting etc. Flipping from one user profile to another It just works.

There was a spell when the Visoflex 2 wouldn't auto engage without hitting the FN (Live View Button). Hasn't happened recently though.

You will always have to hit the FN button to activate, depending the settings in your m11, unless liveview reminds activated when you unplug the visoflex, next you plug in it’s automatic 

[IzelPhotography]

5 hours ago, jakontil said:

You will always have to hit the FN button to activate, depending the settings in your m11, unless liveview reminds activated when you unplug the visoflex, next you plug in it’s automatic 

I thought when it was in extended mode that the Visoflex would turn on automatically when you put your eye to it. If not then it's no problem just hitting the FN button to get it started.

[satijntje]

Just received a second hand M11 in silverchrom.
The camera was bought by the original owner in January 2022.
Firmware that is loaded is 1.6.1
I had hoped that the problem with the freezes would have been sold.
BUT, …….
no way, after 10 shows I had my first freeze already.
No fancy things e.g. no external Visoflex etc….
The camera was bought from a private person, so returning it, is not an issue.
I have done a general reset of the camera, reformatted the SD card in the camera.
During the last 20 shots no freeze. Huuuray 
The saga continues 😞

 

[jakontil]

23 minutes ago, satijntje said:

Just received a second hand M11 in silverchrom.
The camera was bought by the original owner in January 2022.
Firmware that is loaded is 1.6.1
I had hoped that the problem with the freezes would have been sold.
BUT, …….
no way, after 10 shows I had my first freeze already.
No fancy things e.g. no external Visoflex etc….
The camera was bought from a private person, so returning it, is not an issue.
I have done a general reset of the camera, reformatted the SD card in the camera.
During the last 20 shots no freeze. Huuuray 
The saga continues 😞

 

why the sad face? thought it's still hopeful no freezes after 20 shots 😀

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[maxpower]

So far with 1.6.1 I've had one freeze, not at a crucial moment luckily. I think it was either when using LiveView or Playback, or switching between the two quickly maybe. Not a common scenario for me in any way, as I mostly use the rangefinder for focusing. 

Overall for me I'm still one of the lucky people who has an M11 (purchased Feb 22) that only very rarely freezes

I never expected this firmware to be the one to rule them all, so seeing people mentioning freezes is not surprising to me. Overall I feel like the complaints have become much less frequent though, so maybe they fixed like.. 7 out of 10 scenarios? Who knows!