M11-D internal memory fault and freezing

[setuporg]

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I’m still hoping Leica can extract the photos off the internal memory.  It got back to Wetzlar.

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The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[RQ44]

My suggestion, tell them to recover the photos and send you back a brand new, non refurbished camera.

[hdmesa]

17 hours ago, username said:

For what it's worth, I have never ever bothered to update any firmware in two decades of shooting Nikon and Canon - may sound crazy, but the cameras just worked 🤷‍♂️

I've had Canon's and Nikons since the 5D and D700 respectively, and firmware stability out of the gate has varied greatly for me. The more recent the camera, the. more complex, the less stable the firmware 1.0 was. If you bought your cameras a year or so later, it would come with more mature firmware. Of course none of that logic applies to Leica – it's a crapshoot with any given model.

17 hours ago, username said:

If (with the M11 series) there had been an initial bug in the 1.0 firmware that needed ironing out via a firmware update that'd be somewhat understandable, but apparently it's rather ongoing issues, even years after the launch.

Agreed.

17 hours ago, username said:

Telling people it's their own fault / "user error" is ridiculous, it's clearly Leica needing to get their shit together.

Either you're misreading what I intended to communicate, or I communicated it poorly. Either way, it's very smart to keep your firmware updated. You paid for all the future updates – features and bug fixes alike – so get your money's worth. I'm not saying it's your fault it took Leica forever to stabilize the M11, I'm saying if you bought an M11 today that had 1.0 firmware on it, found it to be unstable, and never bothered to realize there was a fix you could apply, then that's on you. And by "that's on you", I don't mean the firmware issue is your fault, I mean the fact that in ignorance you don't seek out and apply the firmware – that will negatively affect your ability to enjoy the M11.

Edited April 19 by hdmesa

[Derbyshire Man]

I've got an M11P, M11M and M11D. I've had issues on all of them. Very early on I learnt to avoid crashes and then threw myself into the beta testing programme and ignored all I'd learnt, pushing the camera. All three are largely stable other than the M11D, concerningly, I've been 'formatting' the M11D and my experience is that it doesn't like that, I too have had issues with the internal drive claiming to be full and odd internal memory glitches*. I've now gone back to simply deleting all of the files on the internal memory when I use it but for all three bodies I have swapped to using SD cards with internal backup as needed. The copying from SD is much faster anyway, as well as the additional security.

My guess is the money, time/staff/employees invested in the electronics, optics and engineering of the M and other series absolutely dwarfs what has gone into the firmware side, it's only a guess but if it's anything like true it's a very great mistake, like it or not, a camera like the modern M depends on the firmware as much as all of those other elements and a product is only as strong as its weakest link.

For the avoidance of doubt, I don't mean that as any slight to the team working on the firmware.

*The M11D is probably my favourite camera so it makes up for it but despite the beta having gone quiet I don't think it's finished in terms of robustness/reliability.

Overall though I wouldn't wish to put anyone off. I've got a Canon R5MK2 and I have no desire to pick it up at all unlike the M11 series cameras I have where I'm endlessly looking for excuses to use them.

[Velo-city]

15 hours ago, setuporg said:

I’m still hoping Leica can extract the photos off the internal memory.  It got back to Wetzlar.

How long has it been since you shipped it off @setuporg? Have they given you any time estimates for repair? 
 

10 hours ago, RQ44 said:

My suggestion, tell them to recover the photos and send you back a brand new, non refurbished camera.

I would agree with you in general, but probably not with Leica where given the QA and stability randomness between each body, I’d probably prefer one where an ‘engineer’ had looked over it and swapped out dodgy components with one from a tested batch. 
 

I’m actually surprised certain members here haven’t accused @setuporg of ‘going looking’ for problems. That’s what I got accused of when chunks of my pictures came in upside down. Yup, clearly went looking for that issue, shame on me and well done Leica for making it so easy for me. 

[username]

11 hours ago, hdmesa said:

Either you're misreading what I intended to communicate, or I communicated it poorly. Either way, it's very smart to keep your firmware updated. You paid for all the future updates – features and bug fixes alike – so get your money's worth. I'm not saying it's your fault it took Leica forever to stabilize the M11, I'm saying if you bought an M11 today that had 1.0 firmware on it, found it to be unstable, and never bothered to realize there was a fix you could apply, then that's on you. And by "that's on you", I don't mean the firmware issue is your fault, I mean the fact that in ignorance you don't seek out and apply the firmware – that will negatively affect your ability to enjoy the M11.

Gotcha, thanks for elaborating! 👍

[JimmyCheng]

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On 11/26/2024 at 7:56 AM, hdmesa said:

Are you typically an early adopter of cameras, purchasing them immediately after release? If not, you missed all the freezing fun with digital Ms prior to the M11. The M11 did suffer, though, because the freezing took more than a few months to fix, it took over two years. So it's not surprising that the M11 issues cast a much wider net.

Fujifilm's kaizan updates trained me to watch for and apply updates. 

Truth be told, I didn't even know firmware was a thing when I was shooting mostly sony and canon. I still don't do firmware update with my cameras these days unless, like the m11, it develops problems. 

[Crem]

1 hour ago, Al Brown said:

It is definitely a thing: some people buy a camera from a big brand (any camera brand really) and then when that brand selflessly churns out IMPROVEMENTS, BUG FIXES, UPGRADES, NEW & ADDITIONAL CAMERA FUNCTIONS and STABILITY PATCHES for FREE they just ignore those updates "because it already works" or "because it causes no problems" lol.

Not a critique, just an observation.

The problem is that firmware upgrades are not always an improvement. The updates sometimes add new bugs. In addition the updates sometimes remove existing features. Leica gives no way to downgrade the firmware so there is always risk involved. All that said, I keep my Leicas updated, but I don't do it blindly like I do with other brands or my Apple phone. With Leica I read the forums and let others take the initial risk. I will never again update a Leica firmware right when it comes out. My SL2-S lost a feature due to an update (focus stick press to zoom) that took 1+ years to get back in another update. My M11 went from being somewhat buggy to extra buggy due to a firmware update (I think it was an upgrade from 1.x to the first 2.x I tried). I would not take on this risk if I were working professional with a stable camera.

Edited April 23 by Crem

[Crem]

2 hours ago, Al Brown said:

I am upgrading 3 systems - Leica, Hasselblad and Sony FX line and boy have the latter two improved with upgrades. My FX3s seem like totally new cameras with features like anamorphic desqueeze, shutter angle etc. And in September 2025, in September 2025, the new announced update will standardize the user experience and operational menu across the entire Cinema Line, adding HDMI RAW Output for Blackmagic RAW recording and other gems.
It seemed with Leica M upgrades tho they just struggled to patch the M11 freezing shitshow up for 2 years...

 

2 hours ago, Al Brown said:

First you need a stable camera. My living 70% depends on my cameras and I am a day one upgrader. No problems whatsoever in my neck of the woods - Hasselblad and Sony Cinema line as described above. Never ever had a problem with Canon either and I was their ambassador for 8 years.
It seems upgrades are like medicine. It works fine for 99,5% of the cases but 0,5% has brutal unexpected side effects. Still not a valid reason to stop taking it out of fear if your life depends on it.

I'm a huge proponent of installing updates early (particularly on Internet devices that can be hacked such as phones). My original comments were 100% targeted at my Leica firmware experiences with the M11 and SL2-S. I've never had a problem with updates on Fuji, Sony, and the M10 line. I really do think Leica (at least in the past) had serious management issues around firmware development (and testing) so I'm now extra cautious with the brand. Two years to sort out the M11 is still baffling to me as someone that writes software for a living. Same with a refusal to let people downgrade. I agree with your medicine comment. People should absolutely update their devices and for the most part it works across all brands. I still think it's worth waiting a little bit for other people to be the guinea pigs. Physical device firmware testing is a difficult problem and there is no practical way to find all the problems ahead of time.

[jaapv]

I agree about security updates being installed immediately. However firmware updates, I first read what they address and if I don’t need them and the gear is performing well, I will skip them. Even if I do decide to update, I will wait for the reports by the early adopters 

[hdmesa]

10 hours ago, JimmyCheng said:

Truth be told, I didn't even know firmware was a thing when I was shooting mostly sony and canon. I still don't do firmware update with my cameras these days unless, like the m11, it develops problems. 

I don't think too much about firmware updates either unless 1) I hear there's a new feature I could use or 2) I currently have a serious problem with the camera, and I hope the update will fix it. 

The M11 freezing problems were bad enough that watching for firmware updates became a bit of a sport on this forum 🫣

[jakontil]

20 minutes ago, hdmesa said:

I don't think too much about firmware updates either unless 1) I hear there's a new feature I could use or 2) I currently have a serious problem with the camera, and I hope the update will fix it. 

The M11 freezing problems were bad enough that watching for firmware updates became a bit of a sport on this forum 🫣

But waiting for next firmware to surface, that’s hope for humanity, what makes most of us alive 

[lct]

Bug fixes, new lenses and sometimes new features are all good reasons to update firmware IMHO. In over 20 years of digital photography, i can't recall a single example of a bad firmware update, but my old memory can fail me.

[costa43]

I always update firmware immediately. Never had a problem with any item. That being said, Leica taking so long to sort out the M11 is quite frankly, a joke. Just because some of us have had no issues it does not negate the ridiculous amount of people who have had problems. I don’t think these issues would stop me from updating firmware in the future but I will hold off from buying a new Leica camera until it has been around for a while. 

[Tseg]

I only came to using Leicas a little over a half year ago and was amazed how many users had both a film and digital version.   Now I'm of the impression that these learned users have the film version as backup, like having an extra battery.   Correct?

Knock on wood, I continue to have no memory or freeze issues with my M11-D.   It really has been flawless.

[IkarusJohn]

On 11/15/2024 at 6:10 AM, setuporg said:

So it happened finally — after a trip to New York that filled up the internal memory of my month’s old M11-D, I cannot download the photos from it.

When using the internal memory, I was checking the remaining shots.  The counter finally went under 999 and started to decrease.  At about 500 it suddenly said Full.  I inserted an SD card and continued shooting.  Coming home tried to download.  Only downloaded the SD images and hung on the first internal (with the last number) and never got it.  Image Capture takes a very long time to list the files.  When they begin listing they are shown without previews.  Nothing could be downloaded, IC just shows a rotating progress wheel on the first image.  

Disconnecting and turning off-on results in a freeze almost every time.  I’ve had only a handful freezes before and never repeated ones.  Something is confusing it.

When connecting via FOTOS over WiFi, it takes a long time to prepare the gallery and shows the first few dozen images with thumbnails.  Alas the thumbnails end after about a few dozen and an attempt to download a preview or the DNG either yields Error or just hangs.

The good thing is that the IC listing contains file names, sizes, and dimensions of photos that are correct.

I sense this might be a service trip to NJ at least but wonder what else could be done…

6 months on … any news?

[jaapv]

7 hours ago, Tseg said:

I only came to using Leicas a little over a half year ago and was amazed how many users had both a film and digital version.   Now I'm of the impression that these learned users have the film version as backup, like having an extra battery.   Correct?

Knock on wood, I continue to have no memory or freeze issues with my M11-D.   It really has been flawless.

They just like shooting both film and digital. Two different disciplines. 

[jakontil]

5 hours ago, jaapv said:

They just like shooting both film and digital. Two different disciplines. 

I know i did, and to limit my GAS for D series M 

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[Kiwimac]

Did OP solve this?

 

 I’m looking at buying another body and I like the D version but…

[kiwidad]

On 4/23/2025 at 2:37 PM, Al Brown said:

It seemed with Leica M upgrades tho they just struggled to patch the M11 freezing shitshow up for 2 years...

The question I have always had about the S*** S*** as you call it, is was a this actually a massive world wide M11 issue or just something seen in relatively small number posted about constantly over and over by some here in the forums. My perception would certainly explain why it wasn't leapt on by Leica to fix quickly. Look at the card erasure problem on the Sl3 that was fixed by firmware update weeks after it was discovered (and from what I read not actually a bug but a failure to read the manual), but yet they were very responsive to change the flow to prevent it.