M11 freeze issues [Merged]

[Krzysztof]

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19 hours ago, Qlan said:

When does the freeze happen (startup, after taking a picture, etc)? This is the same symptom as the freeze I had at startup with uncoded lenses. The difference is that the freeze happens at startup, there is no lights in the viewfinder, pressing the shutter doesn't do anything, I can open and navigate in the menu, but as soon as I open live view, I get a black image (with other information on the screen), and then nothing is responsive and I have to pop the battery. If you use live view by default, then maybe it is the same failure mode, but you just skip the previous steps.

And this supports the hypothesis we had that it has something to do with lens detection (either hardware or software).

Exactly that! I had some random freezes on startup with 35 FLE v1. But lately they start to happen more often. Last week my camera froze on me 3 times in one day. I was ready to send it back, but then I read someone mentioned that issue with uncoded lens.  I checked bar code on my lens and I noticed it had some dirt on one of the white bars. I cleaned it up and no issues after that! 
I also noticed  that you can't turn off lens detection, even when you set it to off, it will check if your lens has a code and turn itself on again if its detects 6bit coded lens. Camera starts, is there a code? NO? Normal startup. YES? Lets check the code and assign a profile. If this step fails, bad code get scanned or something, it looks like it just hangs on this step instead of giving as warning.

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[lct]

11 hours ago, Krzysztof said:

[...] I checked bar code on my lens and I noticed it had some dirt on one of the white bars. I cleaned it up and no issues after that! I also noticed that you can't turn off lens detection, even when you set it to off, it will check if your lens has a code and turn itself on again if its detects 6bit coded lens. Camera starts, is there a code? NO? Normal startup. YES? Lets check the code and assign a profile. If this step fails, bad code get scanned or something, it looks like it just hangs on this step instead of giving as warning. 

Interesting thank you. Lens detection off could not work after you cleaned the coding pits, i guess, but before this cleaning process, lens detection could have been set to off or to manual normally given that the lens was not recognized by the camera. At least, this is the way it works with falsely coded lenses for me.

[Krzysztof]

13 hours ago, lct said:

Interesting thank you. Lens detection off could not work after you cleaned the coding pits, i guess, but before this cleaning process, lens detection could have been set to off or to manual normally given that the lens was not recognized by the camera. At least, this is the way it works with falsely coded lenses for me.

Yes, It can be set to off, but the camera will switch it back on after next power on, whenever it detects 6bit coded lens. 

[lct]

2 hours ago, Krzysztof said:

Yes, It can be set to off, but the camera will switch it back on after next power on, whenever it detects 6bit coded lens. 

I don't see this as a problem when the lens is correctly coded but such behavior would not be normal in your specific case i.e. when the coding pits are erased or dirty. In case of uncoded or miscoded lenses, the lens is not recognized by the camera so not only lens detection can be set to off but it should remain so after the next power-on normally. I can reproduce this behavior at will with uncoded or miscoded lenses. Those are conflicting situations the user can avoid himself by setting lens detection to off or to manual, aside from cleaning his lens or camera, but i would rather Leica grey out or disable lens detection auto for lenses like that. Lens detection auto is made for coded or hand-coded lenses, not for uncoded or miscoded ones IMHO.

[Olaf_ZG]

Not an m11 issue, but a m10m, but i show it here to comfort you.

Today, my m10m froze several times. It is my first time. Once I had to remove the battery, rest was solved by switching off the camera. I guess it’s related to the visoflex as it was the first time I really used it.

[lct]

You may wish to make sure that the camera is off before mounting or removing the EVF.

[Olaf_ZG]

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4 hours ago, lct said:

You may wish to make sure that the camera is off before mounting or removing the EVF.

I did, still it happened. In the end, after every photo (series), I switched off the camera and this worked.

As I used the visoflex for precise composition, start up time was not an issue.

[Krzysztof]

Whenever I think my freezes are gone, this camera keeps on giving  Today I grabbed battery from charger turned on camera, format my sd card, try to switch camera off, power switch not working, shutter button not working. 

[neonvoid]

Leica, it's time fix your #$%^!

[lct]

2 hours ago, Krzysztof said:

Whenever I think my freezes are gone, this camera keeps on giving  Today I grabbed battery from charger turned on camera, format my sd card, try to switch camera off, power switch not working, shutter button not working. 

Would you mind doing the same process but formatting the card with SD Card Formatter before inserting it in the camera? Just curious to see if it works for you as well as it does (apparently) for me.

[Krzysztof]

4 hours ago, lct said:

Would you mind doing the same process but formatting the card with SD Card Formatter before inserting it in the camera? Just curious to see if it works for you as well as it does (apparently) for me.

Time for my last big test I changed my Hoodman 128GB card to Lexar 64GB that I was using with m10. I format internal memory and used SD Card Formatter to format SD. I will also use different battery ( I remember someone mention that he had issues because of faulty battery). Will see how it goes.

[oka]

I'm pretty sure that it's more hardware problem than software. Have two bodies and constantly other body freezes much more frequently than the other one. On last wedding with less than 100 photos and it froze middle of group photos.

If the problem is caused by 6 bit reading or memory card incompatibilities, the problem would be fixed long time ago.

If it's the hardware problem, Leica knows is it already as people has so many units replaced so they have enough boards to study the issue.

I personally suspect that Leica is trying to fix the issue with the firmware than making large recall.

[lct]

2 hours ago, oka said:

I personally suspect that Leica is trying to fix the issue with the firmware than making large recall.

This personal suspicion seems to be confirmed by the fact that some new M11s are already equipped with firmware 1.6.2.

[oka]

11 hours ago, lct said:

This personal suspicion seems to be confirmed by the fact that some new M11s are already equipped with firmware 1.6.2.

I highly suspect that they have revised hardware which needed also firmware update.

I don’t see any other reason to limit the firmware to the new units only.

[lct]

52 minutes ago, oka said:

I highly suspect that they have revised hardware which needed also firmware update.

I don’t see any other reason to limit the firmware to the new units only.

I can only suspect that firmware 1.6.2 will be offered to download in a non-too-far future hopefully.

[mediumformula]

Does the fact that M11 Monochrom owners are not reporting on freezing issues mean that the freezing issues of the M11 are hardware related and that this problem was addressed with the M11 Monochrom? 

[Budfox]

Yes - could be an issue with unreliable RAM for example. We know the M11M has at least a different module?

Having said that, there are many reporting M11's with minimal or few feeezes so who really knows.

[Guest]

Regarding Firmware 1.6.2: My new M11, equipped with 1.6.2 (replacement for freezing M11), delivered by Wetzlars customer care, froze two times - just the day after i recieved it. Sold it now. Enough M11 adventures for me. Cost me 1.000€ and my faith in Leica. 

The way they are dealing with this, the way they don't respond to calls and eMails - what is going on there?

 

Edited July 20, 2023 by wellknown

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[lct]

Sorry for your experience. I would require a refund or replacement in such a case but your sad experience will make me think twice before upgrading to firmware 1.6.2 if/when it becomes available given that 1.6.1 is working just fine for me at the moment.

[don daniel]

Am 21.6.2023 um 01:53 schrieb lct:

Please forgive the ramblings of this old law teacher but i prefer facts to speculation when i have the choice. I did have freezes before firmware update 1.6.1. Since then, i just followed my own advice so i never use my uncoded lenses under lens detection auto to begin with.

Since I don't like the lens profile of the Apo-Summicron 35mm for the M11, I tape off the 6-bit sensor and choose the profile of the Summicron 35mm asph. in the camera. This does not affect my M11 in any way. I have also used uncoded lenses from Voigtländer without any problems, with the manual profile activated and with the profile deactivated. I can't imagine that the 6-bit sensor triggers the problem with the camera freezing.