SD Card Issues with M11/M11M Since Firmware 2.0.2

[johnbuckley]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Thank you, LCT. I have been following your comments here since approximately 2003. I hear what you’re saying. I think the M11 and M11M are marvels of the age. Like all Leica digital cameras, one suffers from the occasional freeze, but it’s a small price to pay for using such a glorious contraption. My experience with the latest firmware, on two different cameras, is different from my norm, and different from yours. I’m not slagging the camera, just seeking guidance from others who may have been dealing with the same issue. Here’s to the next firmware being perfect in all regards. 

[John Black]

The firmware 2.0.2 release notes include these two warnings...

Quote

Important Information regarding memory card use
•
In rare cases, the use of UHS-I SD may result in some technical issues. An optimization for these SD
cards is planned for a later firmware update. Leica recommends using UHS-II cards to generally avoid
these issues, and to guarantee the best possible performance for your camera.
Important information regarding the import of DNG files
•
In rare cases, the import of DNGs from the SD card to image processing programs like Adobe Photo-
shop and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom would result in damage to the data structure, rendering the
DNGs unreadable. This error will be remedied shortly.

 

It is reasonable to assume there is some correlation with the memory card issues some of us are experiencing and Leica's warnings.  What it's worrisome is that in my case the issue did not happen on the first shot, but after using the camera for awhile and an afternoon's worth of shots were lost.  So no more SD cards for me until Leica releases a firmware update fixing this.

[Derbyshire Man]

Crikey! How many did you lose? Were they there and corrupted? We’re they reversible from internal memory?

[Chris_Jenks]

On 1/3/2024 at 4:32 PM, jaapv said:

If you format in SD formatter does the problem persist?  It may be that the camera “signature “ has changed. 

I’ve had this problem for around 3 months and have been using SD formatter for 2 of them. In desperation I have replaced my SanDisk V90 card with a Lexar SDXC V90 II 128 GB card. Hopefully this will do the trick. 

[MyLeicaWorld]

On 1/3/2024 at 6:32 PM, jaapv said:

If you format in SD formatter does the problem persist?  It may be that the camera “signature “ has changed. 

For me; yes it does..

[BillCB]

Since I last responded on this thread I have acquired an M11-P. It came with 1.6 and I upgraded to 2.02 with Fotos, no problem. As on my M11 I'm shooting first to INT and backing up with a Sandisk UHS II 300mb XCSD  card. I only shoot DNG. Again, so far so good. I wonder if shooting JPEGs causes a problem?

[John Black]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

3 hours ago, BillCB said:

Since I last responded on this thread I have acquired an M11-P. It came with 1.6 and I upgraded to 2.02 with Fotos, no problem. As on my M11 I'm shooting first to INT and backing up with a Sandisk UHS II 300mb XCSD  card. I only shoot DNG. Again, so far so good. I wonder if shooting JPEGs causes a problem?

I shoot DNG only, so I don't think JPEG is the issue.

 

[SJH]

Hi everyone - I spoke too soon in another thread were I mentioned I hadn't had any issues with either my M11 or M11P!!

After upgrading to 2.02 I was shooting potential wedding locations at the weekend and afterwards I found that the camera had written corrupted DNG's to the SD card (every shot). So far my observations are:

1. My M11P can write DNG's to INT without any issues.
2. The metadata is corrupted badly writing to any SD card (all fast UHS II from Lexar, Sandisk etc).
3. JPEG's can be written to the SD card without issue - it's only DNG's.
4. Reset the camera still the same issue.
5. All cards used and tested work perfectly with DNG's on my Q3, SL2/SL2-S etc.
6. DNG's written to internal memory can be transferred to the SD card and these open in Lightroom etc without an issue. 

Given the points above it has to be a firmware bug and not hardware for the obvious reason that DNG's can be written from INT to SD as well as JPEG's direct to the SD card.

I've been in contact with Leica customer support yesterday and today and they're speaking with me later, if you are experiencing this issue please can you log with them as they don't have any 'official' calls logged so far.

It's just a guess but I think it could be that the original M11 firmware didn't support writing DNG to SD and JPEG say to INT in the menu and this was changed because of owners wanting to use SD cards that had a larger capacity for DNG than the internal memory of 64gb on the original M11. The latest update may have a bug that dates back to this change and something wasn't updated in 2.02.

[kiwidad]

On 1/2/2024 at 6:59 PM, johnbuckley said:

In the past several weeks, after downloading and installing Firmware 2.0.2 on both my M11 and M11 Monochrom, I’ve had the same troubling memory/SD card failures. In both cameras I use SanDisk 128gb Extreme Pro cards. In the incidents with both cameras, I have taken a number of pictures, and then notice on the LCD an interminable swirling red figure. I’ve subsequently removed the battery and put it back in, which gets the camera operating again, but it now says there are No Valid Images To Play. After removing and reinserting the SD card, the images that were on it show up — minus the pictures I had just taken. 
 

I have both cameras set up to record DNG/JPEG on the SD card first. On those occasions when, suspecting I have a problem with the SD cards, I’ve reconfigured the memory setting to record INT first, and not had problems. But I find it odd that the problem might be the SD cards — I’ve used SanDisk Extreme Pro cards for years with no problem. Because this has happened on two different cameras that were both recently updated with the new firmware, my suspicion is there’s a firmware problem. But I’ve seen no reports of this on the Forum.

Can anyone suggest what you think might be going on? I’d appreciate it. Thank you in advance. 

I discovered and solved what was causing this on my M11. You mileage may vary.

I typically keep the lens cap on all the time and after taking several shots and card still showing a solid write LED, instead of pulling the battery and reseting that way I threw it back in the bag (lunch was served) and after finishing lunch (maybe an hour) I picked the camera back up to discover it was in stands and when I woke it I had several LONG exposures recorded on the card. So I stopped walking. around with the lens cap on and I haven't had it happen since!  I had the visoflex on and set to use visoflex only so I may not hav a seen any message displayed. Might be unique to me but I figure if I. have donut someone else has. 

[SJH]

11 hours ago, SJH said:

Hi everyone - I spoke too soon in another thread were I mentioned I hadn't had any issues with either my M11 or M11P!!

After upgrading to 2.02 I was shooting potential wedding locations at the weekend and afterwards I found that the camera had written corrupted DNG's to the SD card (every shot). So far my observations are:

1. My M11P can write DNG's to INT without any issues.
2. The metadata is corrupted badly writing to any SD card (all fast UHS II from Lexar, Sandisk etc).
3. JPEG's can be written to the SD card without issue - it's only DNG's.
4. Reset the camera still the same issue.
5. All cards used and tested work perfectly with DNG's on my Q3, SL2/SL2-S etc.
6. DNG's written to internal memory can be transferred to the SD card and these open in Lightroom etc without an issue. 

Given the points above it has to be a firmware bug and not hardware for the obvious reason that DNG's can be written from INT to SD as well as JPEG's direct to the SD card.

I've been in contact with Leica customer support yesterday and today and they're speaking with me later, if you are experiencing this issue please can you log with them as they don't have any 'official' calls logged so far.

It's just a guess but I think it could be that the original M11 firmware didn't support writing DNG to SD and JPEG say to INT in the menu and this was changed because of owners wanting to use SD cards that had a larger capacity for DNG than the internal memory of 64gb on the original M11. The latest update may have a bug that dates back to this change and something wasn't updated in 2.02.

Just to add for everyone - on further investigation today I've found the following from testing and liaising with Leica:

1. If I do a complete reset i.e. remove Fotos link & sync etc as well and then remove the battery it will write DNG's to the SD card.
2. The minute I load the Profiles back in then it stops writing DNG's to the SD card.
3. I've saved the Profile file to my Mac and then to different SD cards but it always has the same result when I import them on my M11P.

Issue therefore appears to be in the export of your profiles when a firmware update arrives and/or the actual combination in your profiles.

If you are having issues try a complete reset and then take some shots with the only setting added being INT for JPEG and SD for DNG. In my experience you should now see DNG's being saved to the SD card. I've yet to manually load my profiles back in but this is the next stage in testing.

[cmoxon]

On 1/3/2024 at 5:10 PM, mzbe said:

Not firmware related - also happens with M10, M10M, M11 firmware 1.x, ...

Have been using M for 14 years and this is the first time I’ve experienced this. Never been an issue on the M10 or M10M.

This was must have been firmware related, or at least it was brought on by the firmware change, but strangely only on the M11M.

[SJH]

14 hours ago, SJH said:

Just to add for everyone - on further investigation today I've found the following from testing and liaising with Leica:

1. If I do a complete reset i.e. remove Fotos link & sync etc as well and then remove the battery it will write DNG's to the SD card.
2. The minute I load the Profiles back in then it stops writing DNG's to the SD card.
3. I've saved the Profile file to my Mac and then to different SD cards but it always has the same result when I import them on my M11P.

Issue therefore appears to be in the export of your profiles when a firmware update arrives and/or the actual combination in your profiles.

If you are having issues try a complete reset and then take some shots with the only setting added being INT for JPEG and SD for DNG. In my experience you should now see DNG's being saved to the SD card. I've yet to manually load my profiles back in but this is the next stage in testing.

Just so everyone is aware so far Leica have been excellent in responding to this ( and it will be even better when they fix it/find the fault/bug!!) and Wetzlar have the files to review as follows:

1. DNG's taken after a factory reset that write to the SD card perfectly - the only change from the factory defaults being JPEG to INT and DNG to SD in the menu and taking a shot straight after (no profile saved at all).

2. DNG's that have corrupted metadata after importing my profiles.

3. The Profiles export file so they can load this onto their test M11P's.

At this point the odd thing is that same Profiles file worked perfectly with the previous firmware update but not the current one, so current theory:

1. Somehow the exported Profile file is corrupted in some way that caused this issue with the current firmware but not the last version - this could be a camera fault or a firmware bug.

2. We know it's not an SD card issue - tested with multiple brands and all UHS II 300mbs+ and they work perfectly in my other Leica's.

3. It's a current firmware bug that relates to a profile setting on import - could possibly relate to the fact the original M11 firmware did not support JPEG to INT and DNG to SD.

My final step testing wise (and Wetzlar might do this to) is to rebuild my profiles from the camera factory defaults from scratch and then test writing DNGs to the SD card again.

 

[MyLeicaWorld]

On 1/6/2024 at 6:55 PM, Chris_Jenks said:

I’ve had this problem for around 3 months and have been using SD formatter for 2 of them. In desperation I have replaced my SanDisk V90 card with a Lexar SDXC V90 II 128 GB card. Hopefully this will do the trick. 

Chris, how is the latest situation with Lexars?

[SJH]

7 minutes ago, MyLeicaWorld said:

Chris, how is the latest situation with Lexars?

Just a tip from my experience but have you tried doing a factory reset and then just shooting in that state to test your SD cards, from my testing and exchange with Wetzlar it's definitely not SD card related in my case.

[MyLeicaWorld]

2 hours ago, SJH said:

Just a tip from my experience but have you tried doing a factory reset and then just shooting in that state to test your SD cards, from my testing and exchange with Wetzlar it's definitely not SD card related in my case.

I m really tired of the factory resets   haven’t tried..

[jeri]

Well I also reluctantly joined the dubious LEICA broken hearts club. It started after two camera freezes, which occurred early this evening when I took two photos in quick succession. Which required the extraction of the battery. But after that things got better, and I continued and took several pictures (less than 24 frames). After returning home, I decided to try to solve the problem. Well, I shot several pictures in a row, then I pressed on the play button. I was surprised to find on the screen the inscription SD card error. Now even though my memory card is made by Kingston (canvas V90 SDR2/128GB react plus sdxc uhs-ll U3), I'm trying to save the photos by using RecoveRx recovery software (made by Transcend). And indeed at these moments the recovery software finished its work. But unfortunately not everything is perfect. In other words, I got exactly what I pictured - Black and white images in jpeg files and in a reduced size of 36 MP. All because the recovery software does not know how to decode DNG files. In short, I have never had such a thing. And I do not save anything in the internal memory drive of the camera. And please do not advise me where I am I need to save my photos...

[Tailwagger]

I'll simply chime in that I had my sixth corrupt file a day or two ago.  As I've mentioned elsewhere, setting storage to INT=SD seems to be a consistent safety net as the internal memory saves the file uncorrupted.  Unfortunately in this case, I wound up deleting the image by accident as to move the image  I first delete the images on the SD card  and then copy over the missing file form internal memory.  Sadly this time when I deleted the images on camera, I discovered that the SD card was still in the computer slot, not the camera and so I lost the missing image.  Sigh...

[jakontil]

M11 have changed the way i look at sdcard, how meticulous choosing would be and avoiding some others, hence i was stuck with my old sony G uhsII 299mb/s which first was used back in 2018 consistently where proved to be reliable when transported to M11 since early 2022

however sdcard tended to fail at anytime, i pulled the trigger last month and bought sabrent uhsII and been using it since primarily. I could say it was as solid as my sony G uhsII but then i m still running on fw 1.6.1 

[Chris_Jenks]

On 1/10/2024 at 4:20 PM, MyLeicaWorld said:

Chris, how is the latest situation with Lexars?

I have just returned from a week in Sicily with 344 photos on the card, minus a few I deleted, and I’m cautiously happy to say I experienced no freezes during this time. I did not connect the camera to Leica Fotos at all - I deleted on the camera. 

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[Derbyshire Man]

I was having a crash at least every 100 shots. Luckily I have an M11-P. No crashes for 1,000 images since I changed to internal 256gb rather than the 128gb UHSII V90 card. Settings other than this seem to make no difference.

Fingers crossed and wood touched.

Edited January 12, 2024 by Derbyshire Man