M11 freeze issues [Merged]

[lct]

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1 hour ago, jakontil said:

i mean, which situation would require you to use your nose?

Just close your right eye and shoot

[APA_Leica]

I just came back from a ten day trip in which I used my new M11 for the first time. It froze at least a couple of times every day. Sometimes  just powering it off worked, but a few times I had to remove the battery. I experienced this only a handful of times in a few years of owning an m10.  

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[jakontil]

1 hour ago, APA_Leica said:

I just came back from a ten day trip in which I used my new M11 for the first time. It froze at least a couple of times every day. Sometimes  just powering it off worked, but a few times I had to remove the battery. I experienced this only a handful of times in a few years of owning an m10.  

now a pleasant experience, i assume you have the latest firmware installed already? though there are many other factors that might contribute to the freeze or may be only one yet we find to figure it out

Edited July 31, 2022 by jakontil

[APA_Leica]

I was just writing a reply to say, yes, I have the latest firmware, when I decided to double check. Turns out I have 1.3..0.0, so no, I didn’t have the latest, 1.4.0.0 . So please disregard my previous post. Meanwhile, I can say that despite the occasional glitch, I enjoyed shooting with  the M11 very much, and working now the files is a pleasure.  I had my M10 with me as well, and it is a pleasure to experience the many upgrades and improvements in the M11. Thanks for reminding me to check firmware. 

[M11 for me]

I must say unfortunately that here and there I have situations with freezing camera with FW 1.3 and then 1.4. The bugs persist. After all I can easily live with it as it does not happen everyday. Only once I had the very annoying situation where all my setting were gone. I had no backup and 1h work to redo.

[Photoworks]

On 7/28/2022 at 6:21 PM, jakontil said:

while reading this, i was trying to trigger it with my own nose... i mean, which situation would require you to use your nose? thought i use RF and the liveview is off

Leica had a case number for it. but today FW 1.5.1 fixed it already. Just tested it.

[jakontil]

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49 minutes ago, Photoworks said:

Leica had a case number for it. but today FW 1.5.1 fixed it already. Just tested it.

The best information i’ve heard thus far from this m11 saga ^exagerrated 

really wish they iron up most of the bugs, when it works, it is super awesome

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Edited August 3, 2022 by jakontil

[M11 for me]

vor 6 Stunden schrieb Photoworks:

Leica had a case number for it. but today FW 1.5.1 fixed it already. Just tested it.

That would be sort of prove that in 1.5.0.1 more has been fixed than just the 2 official points (uncoded lens plus JPG)

[hdmesa]

11 minutes ago, M11 for me said:

That would be sort of prove that in 1.5.0.1 more has been fixed than just the 2 official points (uncoded lens plus JPG)

I wonder if someone made a mistake when copy/pasting the list of fixes into the official document and only grabbed the last two.

[Paul Bence]

Hello All, 

Just wanted to drop in here as I've had the Leica M11 for a few months and intermittently I'm having this freezing issue too. For me, I'm using a coded lens and it seems to be happen for no rhyme/reason whilst shooting. It's a tad frustrating but the battery removal fixes it instantly. Still its really damn annoying and thought I'd escape the frustrating issues that Fuji cameras gave me constantly.

 

[jakontil]

12 hours ago, Paul Bence said:

Hello All, 

Just wanted to drop in here as I've had the Leica M11 for a few months and intermittently I'm having this freezing issue too. For me, I'm using a coded lens and it seems to be happen for no rhyme/reason whilst shooting. It's a tad frustrating but the battery removal fixes it instantly. Still its really damn annoying and thought I'd escape the frustrating issues that Fuji cameras gave me constantly.

 

Hi paul, have u gotten the latest firmware to go with?

[dscdsc]

On 8/3/2022 at 6:33 AM, Photoworks said:

Leica had a case number for it. but today FW 1.5.1 fixed it already. Just tested it.

Where did you get that version? I only see 1.5.0.1 

[MrFriendly]

On 1/18/2022 at 12:04 PM, mrmalo said:

This might be my first post here, so hello everybody!

I took 3-4 frames with my new M11 and then the camera froze. Froze as in un-responsive - even when I switched the camera off. I was about to take out the battery when the camera came back to life 30 seconds later and rolled off a frame all by itself.

I had literally unboxed the camera, charged the batteries and took these 3-4 frames. No settings were changed other than using the 64GB internal storage versus SD card.

ISO and shutter speed dials were still in auto (how the camera arrived).

Has anybody else experienced something like this?

I have a hunch it's something todo with the electronic shutter but have no data/evidence to backup that up.

 

The freezing-up issue is a common problem with the M cameras, not just M11; if you search the forum, you will find many posts about it.  I had a M246 Monochrom that would constantly freeze up.  Then I got two brand new M10M that also had the same issue, and then again the same problem with my M10-P.  I'm a software engineer who works on embedded OS for a living, and I spent a lot of time investigating the freezing-up issue of my M cameras.  I have a hard time believing that the issue is anything but a firmware bug, potentially some kind of race condition, that occurs during read/write stage. Unfortunately, Leica has tried to convince its customers that the issue is with their SD cards, which I don't buy.  If it really is the SD cards, then Leica should publish a list of supported SD cards that work without issue, but so far they have refused or unable to publish such a list.  I even asked the Leica Technical support, and they told me that Leica factory headquarters in Germany is inclined to think the modern Lexar card used may be the cause, they unfortunately don’t get specific with regard to make and model of recommended cards.

There are couple of things you can do to reduce the probability of the camera freezing up:

1. use slower SD cards.  I use 90MB/sec ones, and that greatly reduces the problem.  If I use something like a 250MB/sec card, then I can get the M to freeze up in a few minutes.
2. hard reset the camera by removing the battery before use.  I'm not sure how effective this is, but I have a feeling that there is some kind of potential memory leak that builds up overtime that contributes to the issue.

Leica is not a software company, and they certainly do not develop their own realt-time operating system, so this issues is probably never going to get fixed.  And I bet all the M cameras mentioned here use the same OS.

Interesting enough, I have never had my SL2-S freeze up, and I always use the Lexar 250MB/sec cards with that camera.  My guess is that the SL cameras use a different OS than the M, which doesn't suffer from this bug(s).

I hope that helps.

P.S.

I don't own a M11 (waiting for M11-P and M11M 🙂)

[frame-it]

12 minutes ago, MrFriendly said:

some kind of potential memory leak that builds up overtime

that needs a Major OS/firmware fix

[mrmalo]

7 hours ago, MrFriendly said:

The freezing-up issue is a common problem with the M cameras, not just M11; if you search the forum, you will find many posts about it.  I had a M246 Monochrom that would constantly freeze up.  Then I got two brand new M10M that also had the same issue, and then again the same problem with my M10-P.  I'm a software engineer who works on embedded OS for a living, and I spent a lot of time investigating the freezing-up issue of my M cameras.  I have a hard time believing that the issue is anything but a firmware bug, potentially some kind of race condition, that occurs during read/write stage. Unfortunately, Leica has tried to convince its customers that the issue is with their SD cards, which I don't buy.  If it really is the SD cards, then Leica should publish a list of supported SD cards that work without issue, but so far they have refused or unable to publish such a list.  I even asked the Leica Technical support, and they told me that Leica factory headquarters in Germany is inclined to think the modern Lexar card used may be the cause, they unfortunately don’t get specific with regard to make and model of recommended cards.

There are couple of things you can do to reduce the probability of the camera freezing up:

1. use slower SD cards.  I use 90MB/sec ones, and that greatly reduces the problem.  If I use something like a 250MB/sec card, then I can get the M to freeze up in a few minutes.
2. hard reset the camera by removing the battery before use.  I'm not sure how effective this is, but I have a feeling that there is some kind of potential memory leak that builds up overtime that contributes to the issue.

Leica is not a software company, and they certainly do not develop their own realt-time operating system, so this issues is probably never going to get fixed.  And I bet all the M cameras mentioned here use the same OS.

Interesting enough, I have never had my SL2-S freeze up, and I always use the Lexar 250MB/sec cards with that camera.  My guess is that the SL cameras use a different OS than the M, which doesn't suffer from this bug(s).

I hope that helps.

P.S.

I don't own a M11 (waiting for M11-P and M11M 🙂)

Agreed, it seems to be a common problem across M cameras and don't think it will ever be resolved.

I originally posted this thread back in January 2022. Since then, I've been updating my camera when new firmware is released, and haven't experienced a crash in a very long time. I also shoot in full manual mode.

I'm not sure if it's SD card speed related, as mine is 300mb/s! 

[jakontil]

Yeah i remember back in the day some freezes up were unfortunately directed at particular SDcard but on the slower speed though so while i hope there’s at least a workaround i found the temporary solution seems inconsistent 

best bet probably use the old sdcard which never leads to a freeze problem before

and hope while the problem builds over time, it wont lead to the death of its host

[jaapv]

19 hours ago, mrmalo said:

Agreed, it seems to be a common problem across M cameras and don't think it will ever be resolved.

I originally posted this thread back in January 2022. Since then, I've been updating my camera when new firmware is released, and haven't experienced a crash in a very long time. I also shoot in full manual mode.

I'm not sure if it's SD card speed related, as mine is 300mb/s! 

Has anybody investigated whether this is temperature related?  M cameras are known to have heat management problems occasionally, due to the vintage body design. 

[Photoworks]

I am not an engineer or have any insides.

I think Leica is using a new database on the M11. If you use a card from another camera it need formatting before you can use it in the M11

no more moving cards from SL or other M cameras.

I had freezing issue with faster cards, Sony and ProGrade but they have been resolved with FW updates.

I don't think overheating is a big issue on the M11, the sensor does not get as hot. The M10R use to get read hot.

If you have problem email Leica with your card model and they may fix it.

I am a fun of the internal memory as late, it is much faster clearing up buffer. I just copy images to SD card when I get home. 

[ravinj]

My first "real world" shooting with my M11 yesterday. About 6 hours. Froze thrice, had to take out battery each time to fix it. Basically, waking up from auto power off, but nothing worked, no response to any button press. I could see the red leds in the rangefinder window, so the camera definitely woke up.  Temp wasn't high and SD card formatted in camera. Was using the Viso, so not sure if it is related to that. 

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[lct]

27 minutes ago, ravinj said:

My first "real world" shooting with my M11 yesterday. About 6 hours. Froze thrice, had to take out battery each time to fix it. Basically, waking up from auto power off, but nothing worked, no response to any button press. I could see the red leds in the rangefinder window, so the camera definitely woke up.  Temp wasn't high and SD card formatted in camera. Was using the Viso, so not sure if it is related to that. 

Which card were you using?