M11 freeze issues [Merged]

[hdmesa]

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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

[Warton]

4 hours ago, Somchai said:

Every time someone asks me whether to get an M11 or M10R my response is always the same. 

M10R.

If you can get one brand new even better!

I’m not 100% convinced a firmware update will fix what ails this camera. 

that's why I have both M11 and M10-R black paint. 

[neonvoid]

Happened to me today, had to remove and reinsert the battery. Don't remember doing anything out of the ordinary before it locked up.

[charlesphoto99]

Don’t worry folks, there will be a fix coming, but you’ll have to be patient and unfortunately pay for it (though that doesn’t seem to be much of a problem around here). I even know the secret internal codename for the fix: M12. 

[hdmesa]

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9 hours ago, charlesphoto99 said:

Don’t worry folks, there will be a fix coming, but you’ll have to be patient and unfortunately pay for it (though that doesn’t seem to be much of a problem around here). I even know the secret internal codename for the fix: M12. 

The M12 will occasionally burst into flames in order to differentiate itself from the freezing M11.

[teilor]

Despite updating my M11 to the latest version and using the Leica recommended SanDisk uhs-2, I have encountered two instances of the device freezing within a month and a half of purchasing it. While removing the battery resolves the issue, I am worried that this may be a chronic problem.

[lct]

5 hours ago, teilor said:

Despite updating my M11 to the latest version and using the Leica recommended SanDisk uhs-2, I have encountered two instances of the device freezing within a month and a half of purchasing it. While removing the battery resolves the issue, I am worried that this may be a chronic problem.

People like me should have the same problems if they were chronic, i guess, but i got none since FW 1.6.1 personally. May i ask if you've been using coded, hand-coded and/or uncoded lenses when your freezes occurred?

[teilor]

I'm using summilux 35mm with 6 bit coding.

[teilor]

44 minutes ago, lct said:

People like me should have the same problems if they were chronic, i guess, but i got none since FW 1.6.1 personally. May i ask if you've been using coded, hand-coded and/or uncoded lenses when your freezes occurred?

I'm using summilux 35mm with 6 bit coding.

[wellknown]

As my M11 froze again yesterday, i had a insightful conversation with Leica customer care in Wetzlar. The freezing issue isn't solved at all an they are still desperately searching for a solution. Recieved a survey form, where i should tell them about the situations the freezes happened. The questions are all about the triggers we all know: Lens Code, User profile, Battery etc etc. 

This may not end well for Leica (and M11 owners wanting to sell it someday), as the M11´s reputation is already heavily damaged. I hope there will be a fix coming soon, but I'm not overly optimistic. 

[frame-it]

4 minutes ago, wellknown said:

As my M11 froze again yesterday, i had a insightful conversation with Leica customer care in Wetzlar. The freezing issue isn't solved at all an they are still desperately searching for a solution. Recieved a survey form, where i should tell them about the situations the freezes happened. The questions are all about the triggers we all know: Lens Code, User profile, Battery etc etc. 

This may not end well for Leica (and M11 owners wanting to sell it someday), as the M11´s reputation is already heavily damaged. I hope there will be a fix coming soon, but I'm not overly optimistic. 

why not post that survey form here so everyone can check?

Edited May 5, 2023 by frame-it

[wellknown]

good idea, but this is maybe under leicas copyright. 

[lct]

Seems like Leica will only come up with a fix if freezes are reproducible. See the link below. My M11 works too well for me to be interested but i would not mind if Leica disabled lens detection auto for uncoded lenses personally.  

 

 

[hdmesa]

1 hour ago, frame-it said:

why not post that survey form here so everyone can check?

I thought I had posted the list of questions earlier in the thread but maybe not. But there was nothing interesting about the questions, just basically asking about every setting and use case they could think of.

[hdmesa]

2 hours ago, wellknown said:

…This may not end well for Leica (and M11 owners wanting to sell it someday), as the M11´s reputation is already heavily damaged. I hope there will be a fix coming soon, but I'm not overly optimistic. 

I think it’s past time they give up and call in help from the Panasonic SL2 firmware team or a third party consultant group.

Leica Miami refused outright to purchase my like new M11 despite only having one used M11 in stock at the time. I had to sell it to MPB.

[wellknown]

"Leica Miami refused outright to purchase my like new M11 despite only having one used M11 in stock at the time. I had to sell it to MPB."

ouch... my local german dealership refuses to take the camera back, although it had freezes from purchase september 22 on, they want to ship it to wetzlar first - as if wetzlar could do anything about it. Guess I'll pass it to my lawyer soon. 

BTW: MBP says 5.150,--€ for the M11. So 3.500 for the bin...

[hdmesa]

37 minutes ago, wellknown said:

"Leica Miami refused outright to purchase my like new M11 despite only having one used M11 in stock at the time. I had to sell it to MPB."

ouch... my local german dealership refuses to take the camera back, although it had freezes from purchase september 22 on, they want to ship it to wetzlar first - as if wetzlar could do anything about it. Guess I'll pass it to my lawyer soon. 

BTW: MBP says 5.150,--€ for the M11. So 3.500 for the bin...

Yeah, the dealer can’t get their money back from Leica after a certain date, so it has to turn into a repair. But even within the return timeframe, Leica technically has to verify an issue. Used to be dealers would just exchange it no questions asked, but they are getting more resistant to M11 returns. And these freezes at startup are intermittent, so they would have to use the camera steadily off and on for a day or two to even provoke the issue. 

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[wellknown]

It's 23 years ago now, but there was something similar in Germany. Back in the year 2000, although very different dimensions. Audi had some issues with the TT back then. Accidents happened and customers claimed the Audi TT had a tricky suspension and aerodynamics. I was working at a Audi dealer back than, selling those cars. Audi ignored the problems and denied the car had an issue. 

Then, some customers talked to each other and the group grew. At the end, there was a class action and all sold TT´s had to be shipped back to the factory and got an ESP System and some suspension corrections on account of Audi. If they had reacted earlier it would have cost them a fraction - but they didn't. Too proud to fail.