M11 freeze issues [Merged]

[jpark114]

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Today, I sold my M11 secondhand to someone, finally gotten rid of all the freezes.  

My unit wasn't that serious, only freezing seldomly when I switched it on.  However, I tried many ways to remedy the problem myself, trying UHS-ii / UHS-i memory cards and trying only leica 6-bit lens, but alas it kept freezing.  I could minimize the impact by keeping the unit switched-on, but considering the amount I paid, it's absurd that I had to do that to keep it stable.

My film Leica bodies, M-A and M6, are going strong, and I take films most of the times nowadays anyway... so I won't be leaving M-system so soon, but boy I'm frustrated by the experience so far. Hope all the problems get sorted out soon for everyone who's affected by it.

I won't be giving up on digital M, and I'm seriously considering M11-M, but I will wait until I'm pretty sure the freezing problem is fixed...

 

 

 

[gabrielaszalos]

My camera (M11 Monochrom) freezes sometimes when I format the internal memory (I am not using an SD card). Not all the time, but on occasion. It is stuck on the formatting screen with the rotating icon. It keeps on rotating forever. Did this happen to anyone else? This thread is extremely long. It is hard to reproduce. It happened when I had quite a few photos on there. Also when I tried to format it empty, but not always.

Edited May 6, 2023 by gabrielaszalos

[oka]

This is quite ridiculous situation. M10 had lot of problems and freezes and same continues on M11. M11 RF calibrations seems to be much more stable than on M10’s so something has been improved…

I use SL2-S’s professionally which has been rock solid but somehow Leica can’t manage the M’s to get them stable.

As this saga continues, Leica has some fundamental problems - Leica had time to fix the issue since 2017 when M10 was initially released.

[chris7273]

M11 : I use one coded new Leica lens, one new Nokton CV (uncoded) and three old Leica lenses from the sixties. One freeze in three months ownership and none from the last update. Quite happy. 

 

[maidenfan84]

This thread is exactly why Leica hasn’t gotten my wallet yet for a new M11. Incredible they  still haven’t put an end to these issues. 

[BillCB]

It's early days yet but after more than 1,000 exposures I've had no problems. I always turn the camera off before changing lenses - I only have coded ones, 24 Elmarit, 50 Lux and 90 Cron.

Now I've probably jinxed myself....

Edited May 6, 2023 by BillCB

[oka]

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22 hours ago, BillCB said:

It's early days yet but after more than 1,000 exposures I've had no problems. I always turn the camera off before changing lenses - I only have coded ones, 24 Elmarit, 50 Lux and 90 Cron.

Now I've probably jinxed myself....

I have two M11's, one is more prone to freezes and I only use coded lenses. I do believe that there is something with the hardware also, which is quite nightmare for the Leica.

I have a feeling that there is either component from different manufacturers or manufacturing differences on same components which causes the problems. This is not easy to fix with firmware and needs hardware replacement.

[Knife]

I can kind of reproduce it. Not sure if the same freezing issue but I can get it almost 100% of the time:

Take a picture, turn off the camera, it’ll freeze. My best guess is the SD card doesn’t have time to write and verify so it errors out, leaving that block in the memory somewhat corrupt.
 

Now I know this isn’t the same issue as bricking your camera, but this is something I’ve noticed.

I would suggest to Leica to read the off operation of camera and check if writing to memory = true then don’t turn off until written and verified.

[lct]

21 minutes ago, Knife said:

Take a picture, turn off the camera, it’ll freeze.

Mine won't, never did so far. Were you using a coded or uncoded lens? Under lens detection auto or otherwise?

[neonvoid]

Froze again today. When doing street photography this means missing a shot.

[Knife]

Tried both coded and uncoded. There’s something finicky there, might just be me though!

 

tried different sd cards, fwiw internal storage seems to be fine for me, no issues there.

[lct]

3 minutes ago, Knife said:

Tried both coded and uncoded

Did you select lens detection auto for your uncoded lenses?

[trickness]

On 5/5/2023 at 3:42 PM, wellknown said:

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. 

I had one of those early TT’s and brought it into the dealer to get the steering & suspension “improvements” installed. Car felt absolutely awful after they were installed and I ended up selling it.

There was nothing wrong with that car. They added a little lip to the back of the car which added down force when you were going like 150 miles an hour, which I never did, but that accessory surely ruined the organic look of the car. It was all down to some stupid magazine test.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, trickness said:

I had one of those early TT’s and brought it into the dealer to get the steering & suspension “improvements” installed. Car felt absolutely awful after they were installed and I ended up selling it.

There was nothing wrong with that car. They added a little lip to the back of the car which added down force when you were going like 150 miles an hour, which I never did, but that accessory surely ruined the organic look of the car. It was all down to some stupid magazine test.

You’re absolutely right, it ruined the aesthetics and made the car more „safe“ for untrained drivers pushing it to it’s borders. There was one former rally driver throwing that car into the bushes- that made the whole thing start. I was going way past 200km/h with it frequently- no issues. 
 

maybe we need that rally driver kind of pro photographer, making Leica realize there is a problem which needs to be taken care of more seriously. 

[maidenfan84]

There’s no incentive for Leica to take it seriously if people keep buying the M11 because Leica themselves, their ‘influencers’ on YouTube, etc sweep it all under the rug and pretend everything’s okay. Money talks and that’s the only way to get Leica to listen. Stop buying the M11 and hurt them in the accounting department 

[lct]

If the last survey reveals that most users are satisfied, like i rather am, not sure why Leica should generalize what appears to be individual issues. Would be interesting to know the results of this survey BTW.

[Guest]

Maybe it's time to talk about consumer rights a bit. In german law, the seller has three attempts to correct faulty items, then it is your choice as a customer to step back from the original contract and give the device back to the seller. The seller then has to pay your money back. You can also choose to change the device for a new item, or you can request a discount on the paid amount. 

The question is, whether the firmware updates, released to address the so called "freezing issue", can be understood as an attempt to correct the disfunction of the Leica M11. How many have been there so far? Haven't it been three? 1.6.0, then 1.6.1, but there was something before 1.6.0, wasn't it? Leica states their knowledge of these failures, as are handing a questionnaire to their customers, searching for hints what causes the defect. What is the legal situation in other countries? In the EU it's roughly the same, i guess?

One last thought. When the M11 Monochrome was announced, i really thought they'd sorted it (the freeze) out. Who would honestly release a diversification of a product, knowingly spreading an unsolved problem to a wider community. But they did, as far as we know - even the Monochrome has the same issues. i really don't get that. 

 

 

[Fritz Fritz]

New M11 owner as of yesterday after using film bodies for some time. Updated the firmware to 1.6.1 immediately upon unboxing.

Cleary hadn't done my homework when my body started freezing randomly. Wondering if Leica Miami will take a return... this is quite bad.

[Mateusz]

Try this - switch LCD/evf from auto to LCD only... Check if that helps?

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[fil-m]

Not scientific, but never had a single lock of my M11 until... I decided to add a SD card and chose the option of storing RAW+JPG shots on both the SD card and the internal memory. My intention was to facilitate image transfers to my Mac through the SD card rather than relying on a cable.

Since then, I have been experiencing locks up maybe once every 3 days of intensive shooting. In one instance I had to force a manual shut of the camera by removing the battery only to find out that some images were corrupt (playing back those images on the camera gave me an error messages). Fortunately the internal storage was not affected and I could retrieve all images through a cable transfer 

Again, the only "event" or change to which I can relate my sudden surge of M11 locks is the usage of a SD card (knowing that I only used the mode that stores shots on both the internal and the SD memory). I use a high quality card, the Lexar Pro 64 GB 2000x

Again, just sharing my assumption