M11-P freezes too

[Derbyshire Man]

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1 hour ago, Derbyshire Man said:

I bought a new M11-P and managed to get a whole 200 frames in before the first freeze and loss of frame. Not ideal. Additionally the 'as new' second hand summilux 35 ASPH FLE isn't sharp at infinity either (at any aperture).

Not entirely impressed with the circa £10,000 purchase!

Running latest firmware and other lenses (voigt 35 1.4 classic II and voigt 50mm nokton 1.2 are totally sharp)

I can't see a way to edit the above post. I've had a look at some other shots and actually some are sharp. More thinking and investigation needed!

The M11-P still froze and lost a shot though!

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[setuporg]

What does an unsharp lens have to do with it if other lenses are sharp?

Edited December 15, 2023 by setuporg

[jaapv]

7 minutes ago, Derbyshire Man said:

I can't see a way to edit the above post. I've had a look at some other shots and actually some are sharp. More thinking and investigation needed!

The M11-P still froze and lost a shot though!

Maybe there is something wrong with the AF?

[LeicaR10]

Derbyshire Man,   You wrote, "as new" second hand Summilux 35 Asph FLE isn't sharp at infinity either (at any aperture)".   There could be a very good reason why the lens is second hand.  The original owner might not have wanted to get the lens repaired under warranty, out of warranty and simply sold it without getting it fixed first or disclosing the lens was not working correctly.   Personally, I do not buy used cameras or lenses unless it's from a dealer with a warranty or return policy.  As for the freeze issue, Leica is working hard on the issue.  Personally, I found using SD Card Formatter first with a new SD card, then formatting in camera resolved the freeze issues way back starting with the M240.  Others have different stories.  The mystery will one day be resolved....   As for the 35 Summilux lens, it needs a trip to Wetzlar or a third party technician that can do the calibration.   r/ Mark 

Edited December 15, 2023 by LeicaR10

[Derbyshire Man]

I've been taking photographs for nearly 50 years now and started developing and printing aged about 10. I've just about got the hang of focussing!

What I was doing was pixel peeping on the camera and it looked soft but I hadn't realised you're not looking at the full file (at least I don't think you are, doesn't look like it). Back at base the files are like a razor. False alarm on that.

The camera conking out and losing images though, that really did happen.

[muskyvibes]

1 hour ago, Derbyshire Man said:

I've been taking photographs for nearly 50 years now and started developing and printing aged about 10. I've just about got the hang of focussing!

What I was doing was pixel peeping on the camera and it looked soft but I hadn't realised you're not looking at the full file (at least I don't think you are, doesn't look like it). Back at base the files are like a razor. False alarm on that.

The camera conking out and losing images though, that really did happen.

The image on the back of the camera are a low-res preview JPEG. Like when your computer shows you a thumbnail of the raw file before you open it. 

If you’ve lost confidence, I would suggest trading up to an M10R while you can find them new and just enjoy taking photos. 

Edited December 15, 2023 by muskyvibes

[LeicaR10]

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Al Brown,  Your post #87...I got an email from Santa's Chief Elf at the Leica workshop...he wrote; "You need patience and be good 365 days a year before we fix the freezing.  Besides, we like freezing and so do the reindeer and of course the "Big Guy".  I assume he is writing about Santa....HO, HO, HO! Merry Christmas!   r/  Mark  

Edited December 15, 2023 by LeicaR10

[jaapv]

4 hours ago, Al Brown said:

Working hard or hardly working on the issue? Freezing M11s since 13th of January 2022 is not working hard.

If nobody knows what is wrong nobody knows how hard and time consuming it is to resolve 

[IkarusJohn]

1 hour ago, jaapv said:

If nobody knows what is wrong nobody knows how hard and time consuming it is to resolve 

That's very true, Jaap.  

But, what we do know is what the camera cost ($8,000?), and that this issue has been going on now for, how long ... 18 months?  We do know that ...

[Stef63]

6 hours ago, jaapv said:

If nobody knows what is wrong nobody knows how hard and time consuming it is to resolve 

I've owned nearly all digital M models, starting from the M9. My M11, acquired in January 2022, stands out as the only one that hasn't experienced a single freeze.

There are three potential distinctions between those encountering frequent freezes and myself: hardware, software, and user behavior.

- Regarding hardware, while differences between M11 product batches are uncertain, variations in internal components might exist over the two-year production period. Although freezes occur across M11 models of various ages, the likelihood of a hardware-related root cause remains uncertain but not entirely dismissible.

- Concerning software, as I've consistently upgraded and utilized my M11 with every firmware release, the observed differences are unlikely to be attributed to firmware discrepancies.

- The user's approach emerges as a significant potential divergence and possibly the root cause. My usage pattern obviously will differ from those experiencing freezes. This is not to imply fault on their part; it's evident that users encountering freezes are operating within the camera's specified technical parameters. I concur with @jaapv that Leica might still be unaware of the exact issue. While it's unacceptable that, even after two years, Leica continues to sell potentially flawed products, the elusive nature of the problem makes discovering the root cause challenging. 

I believe one critical difference between extensive software platforms and firmware in consumer devices lies in the debugging process. Software developers working on large-scale projects often benefit from extensive logging to track issues effectively. Unfortunately, in the case of a camera the product is out in the wild, and engineers have limited resources, and their main source of information comes from sometimes vague descriptions received through customer service.

To enhance the diagnostic capabilities and facilitate the identification of the root cause of frequent freezes, Leica could consider implementing a hidden software debug switch. By providing this option to users experiencing issues, the camera could generate detailed logs stored in the internal memory. This would not only empower users to contribute valuable information to the troubleshooting process but also potentially make the task of discovering and resolving issues considerably more manageable for Leica's engineering team.  Just my 2ct.

[scott kirkpatrick]

Both SL2s and M11s use a modern multi-threaded processor core, built in the ARM architecture.  The SLs have been doing this for a while, and use firmware that has been created over time jointly with a large team of Panasonic engineers.  The M11 is using this platform for the first time, and needs to evolve firmware that was created for the previous M products, that employed fairly dedicated single-purpose single thread chips.  And Leica has pulled together a single team for this purpose, operating closer to Wetzlar and undoubtedly smaller than the army that Panasonic can wield.  M and SL are two entirely different software projects.  To get speedy shooting with these facilities, while operating at very low power, the workload of estimating exposure with any offsets, managing the shutter, setting ISO and then after the exposure applying color temperature correction and extracting all the bits and shipping them off to the chip or chips on which they belong as jpegs or raw files or both -- has to be broken up into many tiny processes which can be dispatched to whichever of the 6 to 8 processors are ready to handle them, so that all of these "cores" stay busy.  Of course, many of the pieces need to be done in a particular order, and so signaling that each tiny piece is finished so that its next step can start is critical, and losing a posted signal, or failing to post a signal causes freezes.  I suspect that Leica has been chasing these problems individually  in each of the firmware 1.x releases, and has tried to clean things up with some better organizational changes in release 2.0.  That's hard, and finding a few new places where things freeze is no surprise.

There are shooters on this forum who turn their camera on at the start of the day, use stable and standard settings, and only shut off at the end of the day.  These folks haven't seen as many freezes or even see no freezes.  When the camera is switching power on, or switching between shooting and reviewing images seems to be the most critical periods.

[Warton]

11 hours ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

 

There are shooters on this forum who turn their camera on at the start of the day, use stable and standard settings, and only shut off at the end of the day.  These folks haven't seen as many freezes or even see no freezes.  When the camera is switching power on, or switching between shooting and reviewing images seems to be the most critical periods.

I agree on this observation.

my m11 currently running firmware 1.6.1 froze about 3 or 4 times in total. All happened when the camera was switched on or switching between shooting and viewing images when I was impatient.

i learned to slow down and freeze has not happened yet and I plan to stay with 1.6.1 for now until dust of 2.0.1/2 debacle settles down

[scott kirkpatrick]

1 hour ago, Warton said:

i learned to slow down and freeze has not happened yet and I plan to stay with 1.6.1 for now until dust of 2.0.1/2 debacle settles down

If you are careful about power on and switching into and out of review, I think you will have no problems with 2.0 and may enjoy the several functional improvements.  I found that the vulnerable period during startup, which used to be 3 or more seconds, is now down to ~0.5 seconds.  I think I can keep out of that window.  And I very rarely review when things are hectic.

[cj3209]

I still have to reboot my work computer periodically.  My Tesla needs a screen reboot, albeit infrequently, and my cell phone also benefits from an occasional restart.  They're all computers and I now expect some form of a necessary reboot from ALL my electronics.  Inconvenient perhaps but that's how complicated this technology has become.

My M11 has frozen twice in the past year and a simple battery pull restart has worked.  I don't have a problem with that.  But if I were a pro, I'd probably have to have multiple bodies.

[Warton]

46 minutes ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

If you are careful about power on and switching into and out of review, I think you will have no problems with 2.0 and may enjoy the several functional improvements.  I found that the vulnerable period during startup, which used to be 3 or more seconds, is now down to ~0.5 seconds.  I think I can keep out of that window.  And I very rarely review when things are hectic.

The reason I stayed with 1.6.1 is that I don’t need any of the new functions that 2.0.2 introduced. And who knows what other bugs this new firmware introduced.

besides, every time I turned on the camera, I heard the flipping sound of shutter and then I took a deep breath which usually lasted about 2-3 seconds before touching any buttons. This deep breath habit suffices well and good to the healthy of mine and camera 

[muskyvibes]

On 12/17/2023 at 9:54 PM, Warton said:

I agree on this observation.

my m11 currently running firmware 1.6.1 froze about 3 or 4 times in total. All happened when the camera was switched on or switching between shooting and viewing images when I was impatient.

i learned to slow down and freeze has not happened yet and I plan to stay with 1.6.1 for now until dust of 2.0.1/2 debacle settles down

That’s weird. When I shoot my M10R and press the view button too quickly it shows me a black screen with the IMG number for a second and then it displays the previous image I took. All I have to do is press right and advance the image by one and I see the last image I took. That’s surprising that the latest M completely locks up just because you pressed a button too quickly. I think Leica have had enough time to work this out. Maybe the file sizes don’t agree with the SD card reader and processor they put inside the camera?

They said:

”The Maestro III image processor's robust buffer accommodates even the highest resolutions for a seamless shooting experience.”…

Does the freeze happen if you take out the SD card and you’re saving in the internal storage only?

Whats shocking is that nowadays most camera processors are doing so many things with real time AF tracking and so many other tasks and I never heard of a Sony for example locking up because you pressed the view button too quickly. The Leica M is doing next to nothing compared to those other cameras.

Edited December 18, 2023 by muskyvibes

[jdlaing]

Perhaps you should use Sony cameras.

[Derbyshire Man]

On 12/17/2023 at 3:54 PM, Warton said:

I agree on this observation.

my m11 currently running firmware 1.6.1 froze about 3 or 4 times in total. All happened when the camera was switched on or switching between shooting and viewing images when I was impatient.

i learned to slow down and freeze has not happened yet and I plan to stay with 1.6.1 for now until dust of 2.0.1/2 debacle settles down

I strongly suspect you are just lucky! Our natural bias often interpret these things as some sort of innate skill or superiority we have developed;-)

Today's freeze (I'm getting one per 100 shots) was in the middle of an unhurried set of about 5 shots, the camera had been on for maybe 5 minutes, it wasn't even in standby, the previous shots had all been fine and the suddenly 30 seconds of nothing and a corrupted image on the SD card after battery popping.

Still, I should be grateful, it least my jujutsu has enable me to charge my camera again via USB otherwise I wouldn't have been able to take a photo at all.

I'm not sure why there is such a need for being apologists for an incredibly expensive photographic tool 2 years down the line after introduction which is struggling with basic functions like charging and er, taking photographs!

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[jaapv]

Relating a positive experience is not being an apologist, but then, I understand that misery likes company.

[Derbyshire Man]

Not so much that, it was the implication that those having problems only have themselves to blame. Let me ask you directly then, do you think that a camera crashing every 100 images and losing the image, along with issues regarding being able to charge and every image being tinted magenta is acceptable? Never mind at the price of this particular product.

Rose tinted spectacle wearers are just as keen on company as the disappointed;-) Only one group will drive manufacturers to perform and improve however.

PS: Don't get me wrong, for the other 99 images out of 100 I love the camera. It's the closeness to greatness that is probably what grates the most. 

Edited December 18, 2023 by Derbyshire Man