Missing images after first shoot with SL3

[SrMi]

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Was anyone else able to reproduce @Mikko Kankainen's bug?

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[Mikko Kankainen]

I can reproduce it. Just tried. WELL almost.

I took about 20 shots. Pressed camera shutdown ONCE. Waited until it was closing, no red light blinking.

ALL IMAGES ARE GONE.

edit. Then tried it again. Shot a burst and shutdown camera. Now the images were there. So I quess that the problem was that after suspend they were not writter because of battery was taken out. Then we continue to shoot and they got overwritten. Could the situation be something like that?

 

EDIT2.
Now when I try it does not happen. All images are there. But first time those 20 images were not showing up when pressing play. Last image was from yesterday. Now I can see them. I will continue to try if I can make the same thing happen.

Edited April 19, 2024 by Mikko Kankainen

[SrMi]

12 minutes ago, Mikko Kankainen said:

I can reproduce it. Just tried. WELL almost.

I took about 20 shots. Pressed camera shutdown ONCE. Waited until it was closing, no red light blinking.

ALL IMAGES ARE GONE.

edit. Then tried it again. Shot a burst and shutdown camera. Now the images were there. So I quess that the problem was that after suspend they were not writter because of battery was taken out. Then we continue to shoot and they got overwritten. Could the situation be something like that?

 

EDIT2.
Now when I try it does not happen. All images are there. But first time those 20 images were not showing up when pressing play. Last image was from yesterday. Now I can see them. I will continue to try if I can make the same thing happen.

Can you reproduce the issue after resetting the camera?

[Mikko Kankainen]

And now I could do it a second time. I took three bursts.

After first and second suspend and battery out, nothing happened.

Then when I took third burst and put camera to suspend burst number 1 and 2 were missing. They were there earlier. Then I scrolled camera and burst number 2 reappeared but burst number 1 was missing. It looks like here is a smoking gun. Just hope that Leica gets this.

EDIT

And when I open SD card only burst number 3 is in card. Burst number 1 and 2 are gone.
I took about 30 images, 7 are in card. And I saw those images in playback so they were there! After 2 battery put when going to sleep and they were gone.

This does it. This camera goes to bag and I will not use it in any critical work.

Edited April 19, 2024 by Mikko Kankainen

[BernardC]

9 minutes ago, Mikko Kankainen said:

And now I could do it a second time. I took three bursts.

After first and second suspend and battery out, nothing happened.

Then when I took third burst and put camera to suspend burst number 1 and 2 were missing. They were there earlier. Then I scrolled camera and burst number 2 reappeared but burst number 1 was missing. It looks like here is a smoking gun. Just hope that Leica gets this.

EDIT

And when I open SD card only burst number 3 is in card. Burst number 1 and 2 are gone.

Your next step is to contact Leica with the exact steps to reproduce the bug. This will speed-up a fix, because they can follow your steps and recreate the bug on their own.

I think "what went wrong" is that the SL3's on/off button isn't clear about when the camera is sleeping or fully off. Presumably, it writes any cached information to the cards when it is turned off, but not when it goes to sleep.

In the meanwhile, I would just make sure that the camera is fully off before removing the battery or cards. It's something that came naturally with the SL and SL2 (turn off the main switch, wait for any LEDs to stop blinking), but not with the SL3.

[Mikko Kankainen]

You are right! Have to be extra careful because of that on/off. 
 

I have contacted Leica, distributor and I have done all I can. Or if there is some direct contact but I think they could just check their email. 

[PeterBoyadjian]

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Mikko sorry if you posted this before but what cards are you using. 

[jaapv]

Don't you worry. In the unlikely case that Leica did not notice this thread, Jono or Andreas will draw their attention to it. 

2 minutes ago, Mikko Kankainen said:

You are right! Have to be extra careful because of that on/off. 
 

I have contacted Leica, distributor and I have done all I can. Or if there is some direct contact but I think they could just check their email. 

 

[MG Photo]

Mikko I just received my replacement SL3 yesterday after experiencing similar issues and I photograph weddings professionally (about 35-40 a year)

Are you saying the files are being corrupted or overwritten when pulling the battery WHEN THE CAMERA ISNT POWERED OFF COMPLETELY. This is critical.

 

i notice my issue only happened when i popped the battery WITHOUT first turning off the camera completely. Not putting it to sleep, im talking about a full power down.

 

if its on or asleep i noticed the issue but NOT when it was first powered down.

[Mikko Kankainen]

8 minutes ago, PeterBoyadjian said:

Mikko sorry if you posted this before but what cards are you using. 

Sony 256 sd and cfe 256gb, Agfa maybe, it came as a bundle with Canon R5. 
But I tried this with Sandisk SD extreme 128gb. 

Edited April 19, 2024 by Mikko Kankainen

[Mikko Kankainen]

1 minute ago, MG Photo said:

Mikko I just received my replacement SL3 yesterday after experiencing similar issues and I photograph weddings professionally (about 35-40 a year)

Are you saying the files are being corrupted or overwritten when pulling the battery WHEN THE CAMERA ISNT POWERED OFF COMPLETELY. This is critical.

 

i notice my issue only happened when i popped the battery WITHOUT first turning off the camera completely. Not putting it to sleep, im talking about a full power down.

 

if its on or asleep i noticed the issue but NOT when it was first powered down.

They are gone! Just nothing there. I will not shoot any wedding until this is fixed. 
 

I use camera only to assigments that I can do again.

[Phill H]

13 minutes ago, Mikko Kankainen said:

Sony 256 sd and cfe 256gb, Agfa maybe, it came as a bundle with Canon R5. 
But I tried this with Sandisk SD extreme 128gb. 

Mikko, are the files being written to only one card or are two cards installed and being used?

[Mikko Kankainen]

Leica replyed, there is a ticket now. Lets hope things go on.

It is just difficult to explain in english and writing. But hope they get what I try to say.

And to be clear, I understand that bugs and errors can occur and I know this will be fixed. I just want to warn all that they dont get into a same situation.

Edited April 19, 2024 by Mikko Kankainen

[Mikko Kankainen]

1 minute ago, Phill H said:

Mikko, are the files being written to only one card or are two cards installed and being used?

Now when I tried to reproduce the bug I used only single SD card.

When I was shooting that football photoshoot I used two cards and backup DNG to both. As always. I though I was safe.

[LocalHero1953]

1 hour ago, frame-it said:

what does video TC have to do with the timestamp of a file?

this sounds more like a serious buffer/volatile memory problem

IDK - just the question of how date and time are managed in f/w. The introduction of a timecode function must have some interface with the internal clock. It may be a red herring.

[Phill H]

1 minute ago, Mikko Kankainen said:

Now when I tried to reproduce the bug I used only single SD card.

When I was shooting that football photoshoot I used two cards and backup DNG to both. As always. I though I was safe.

Are the cards identical write speeds or different? Curious if there is a data bottleneck whilst clearing the buffer due to any card write speeds discrepencies

[Mikko Kankainen]

Sd and cf are never identical. 

[PeterBoyadjian]

So when I lost my files, my SL3 did shut off when I was checking the percentage on my power brick in my back pocket. 

I was shooting using the DC-Coupler, and did not know that my power brick shuts down when you check the percentage left. 

Maybe now that this is happening to more photographers Leica will look into the issue more.

My local rep and NJ basically said just to let them know if it happens again. 

 

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[Shawn30]

Do NOT use the SL3 for important work until this bug is resolved.
 

I had this happen today maybe 100 missing photos of my daughter’s engagement shoot. The pictures were on the card because we looked through them on the camera before changing location. There’s no gap in the numbering, the camera just tossed them like they never happend. 

I was shooting in 4fps 14bit and the camera was struggling after stopping. When I hit the play button to show my daughter the most recent poses, it was super laggy. It froze multiple times. 🤬

[Mikko Kankainen]

I could not agree more. Let's hope that Leica fixes this before wedding season starts. 

It's a scary thing that you can watch you images and confirm that you have captured them but then your 2 hour of photos are just gone. And even if you think using two card helps, you are wrong.
I answered yesterday to emails, "hey, I dont see induvidual photos of my son..." Me: "Yes I'm sorry, our camera lost photos..." and feel like an idiot when try to explain something that just should not be possible.

Write also to Leica that they get more these.

Edited April 23, 2024 by Mikko Kankainen