M11-D internal memory fault and freezing

[kiwidad]

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On 4/19/2025 at 5:18 AM, Velo-city said:

You don't have to experience something personally for it to exist. 

My M11 was awful. Buggy and unreliable and so many weird issues.  Order of magnitude more than on any other camera I’ve ever owned (and I’ve owned a fair few). And it’s obvious from all the reports that it’s one of their most buggy poorly designed cameras. 
It cost circa £8k. No way it should have that many issues that persist nearly three years after release.

I hate that you had issues, but were you one of how many that had them. I have never had issues I couldn't track back to user error only M11 including perceived freezing.  I certainly would not declare a product so terribly flawed based on a posts in a forum!  I owned a car years ago that was supposedly also critically flawed and the same applied. hundred of forum post but knowing the number that were sold it was a very very small percentage. Methinks the M11 is the same. 

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[kiwidad]

On 4/19/2025 at 12:45 AM, 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 🤷‍♂️

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.

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

In many cases it is user error! I know people who couldn't logically find their way out of a round room and they leap to blame instead of critically analyzing the event. We do not know how many M11 were sold so its absurd to declare it critically flawed based on the same posts over and over and some by the same people over and over in online forums.

So no, I think Leica have their shit together frankly. When real KNOWN issue surface, the SL3 card erasure for instance it was resolved very quickly!

You were lucky with youNikon choices, they have had their share of issues that were never resolved. My D2H years ago had a cold startup error many attributed to firmware that was never fixed!

[kiwidad]

On 11/20/2024 at 3:16 PM, Al Brown said:

What M11 issue is not legit? Are there any fake issues?

absolutely I think there are. Tell me what percentage of M11 suffer from freezing for instance? It can't be 100% as mine doesn't! so is it 500 or the forum users against an unknown manufacturing number? Every manufacturer experiences issues and thats why we have warranties, it happens, does paying for a premium product change that. NOPE! I can recall working at an apple dealer many years ago having a 30% fail rate on a particular product straight out of the box. 

I have no doubt some have issues that are real but I don't believe for a minute its a flawed design based on reading forums.

[kiwidad]

On 11/14/2024 at 11:10 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…

so at the end of the day, did you manage to recover the. images?

[Derbyshire Man]

21 minutes ago, kiwidad said:

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.

I have three M bodies, M11P, M11D, M11M and they all had random crashes.
 

Indeed, they are still coming up with rare crashes, battery empty, random card errors and full internal memory errors. Not enough to stop me using them but there’s no doubt it’s been a sh1t show and 100% unacceptable.
 

I’d probably still buy another as it’s not really impacted me seriously, is rare and the overall experience is worth it. 

[kiwidad]

2 minutes ago, Derbyshire Man said:

I have three M bodies, M11P, M11D, M11M and they all had random crashes.
 

Indeed, they are still coming up with rare crashes, battery empty, random card errors and full internal memory errors. Not enough to stop me using them but there’s no doubt it’s been a sh1t show and 100% unacceptable.
 

I’d probably still buy another as it’s not really impacted me seriously, is rare and the overall experience is worth it. 

In cutting edge technology there is always a degree of bleeding some experience. Having been in the tech work for over 40 years I see irritants as just that. they exist in every product at some level, it's the nature of technology. it doesn't make it a shit show by any means! You and I couldn't afford a Leica if it was manufactured at a level to not have any issues in the technology and it would be so late to market we probably wouldn't want it anyway.

I had all the same issues with M10 and even my Q2 (and before I got into leica Fuji X-e2 X-pro2 X-t3 X-e4 nikon D700 D2h D2X D1H) but somehow no-one makes such disparaging comments about those products. Why do you think that is?

[Derbyshire Man]

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1 minute ago, kiwidad said:

In cutting edge technology there is always a degree of bleeding some experience. Having been in the tech work for over 40 years I see irritants as just that. they exist in every product at some level, it's the nature of technology. it doesn't make it a shit show by any means! You and I couldn't afford a Leica if it was manufactured at a level to not have any issues in the technology and it would be so late to market we probably wouldn't want it anyway.

I had all the same issues with M10 and even my Q2 (and before I got into leica Fuji X-e2 X-pro2 X-t3 X-e4 nikon D700 D2h D2X D1H) but somehow no-one makes such disparaging comments about those products. Why do you think that is?

I also think it’s not on to accuse people of ‘user error’, I’ve been using professional level canon and Fuji cameras for 30+ years and I’ve never had ‘user error’ problems before. 
 

I’ve been on the beta testing team and they have been working on it, my impression is that much of the original problem was essential disk handling. In fixing that I think the new random issues have been introduced. My guess is that the firmware team is under-resourced and it seems (although unsaid) that a decision has been made it’s good enough and that resource has turned to alternative products. The problem is that if you build cameras with technology in them you need to resource it to the same level of performance as the optical design, camera design, marketing, manufacturing and other teams and I don’t get the feeling that it is.
 

I love the products and still want the company to do well. There is evidence they do listen, for example huge effort has been made to reduce repair times. 

I think that quite a lot of the criticism comes from the Luddite corner who like to use the problems as a vindication for going back to basics. 

[kiwidad]

4 minutes ago, Derbyshire Man said:

I also think it’s not on to accuse people of ‘user error’, I’ve been using professional level canon and Fuji cameras for 30+ years and I’ve never had ‘user error’ problems before. 
 

I’ve been on the beta testing team and they have been working on it, my impression is that much of the original problem was essential disk handling. In fixing that I think the new random issues have been introduced. My guess is that the firmware team is under-resourced and it seems (although unsaid) that a decision has been made it’s good enough and that resource has turned to alternative products. The problem is that if you build cameras with technology in them you need to resource it to the same level of performance as the optical design, camera design, marketing, manufacturing and other teams and I don’t get the feeling that it is.
 

I love the products and still want the company to do well. There is evidence they do listen, for example huge effort has been made to reduce repair times. 

I think that quite a lot of the criticism comes from the Luddite corner who like to use the problems as a vindication for going back to basics. 

If you have never experienced a user error then you are truly exceptional, I stub my toe on something nearly every day 🙂 

I thought owning a digital M was going back to basics when I traded my Q2 in!

Does owning an M6 make me a luddite lol

[kkm]

If you experienced errors with your M11xx you should report them also to Leica not only here in the forum.

[Derbyshire Man]

1 hour ago, kkm said:

If you experienced errors with your M11xx you should report them also to Leica not only here in the forum.

I of course did, especially being on the beta team and selected for it as having experienced problems. 
 

I think they are largely sorted and personally haven’t experienced recent show stoppers, I’m not arrogant enough to say that others haven’t or they are in some way to blame. I am still getting issues, only yesterday on the M11M. The difference is that it fails gracefully now. 

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Edited May 3 by Derbyshire Man

[lct]

2 hours ago, Derbyshire Man said:

[... I think that quite a lot of the criticism comes from the Luddite corner who like to use the problems as a vindication for going back to basics ...]

Luddites or people convinced that an internet forum can get a camera maker to back down in time or technology. M11-V and M12 will be a modern response to these attempts hopefully.

[gotium]

6 hours ago, Derbyshire Man said:

I have three M bodies, M11P, M11D, M11M and they all had random crashes.
 

Indeed, they are still coming up with rare crashes, battery empty, random card errors and full internal memory errors. Not enough to stop me using them but there’s no doubt it’s been a sh1t show and 100% unacceptable.
 

I’d probably still buy another as it’s not really impacted me seriously, is rare and the overall experience is worth it. 

I went through four M11s, all with issues. Like you though, I just bought another. 

 

[Derbyshire Man]

2 hours ago, gotium said:

I went through four M11s, all with issues. Like you though, I just bought another. 

 

The biggest ongoing issue I have is which one I like the most!

[username]

On 5/3/2025 at 2:16 PM, kiwidad said:

mine doesn't

good for you 👍

[setuporg]

Finally, after more than six months, I’ve received a micro-SD card with most of my photos salvaged.

The original M11-D was within the RMA period and I returned it to B&H for full refund with a note not to touch it and return to Leica NJ as is.  Leica reached out earlier.  I worked with Leica to ensure they got it.  At some point it was back in Wetzlar.  Then I waited.

Siddenly B&H sent me an SD card for $0.  I thought it’s some promotion and ignored it.  The package went through my reshipper in Oregon.  I was abroad when I learned from Leica that this is what the medium for the extracted files was!  It went to my mailbox receivers.

And the FedEx package was lost on the last leg.  I spent a week with FedEx, the case kept getting closed.  It shows delivered but no record of receiving.  Finally I insisted on the case being reopened and a deeper search.  The shipper refused to help further… And today the customer far away brought the package back.

Inside a big B&H box was a small SD card.  I put it into the iPhone with an adapter.  Photos shows three empty files.  After all that wait!  I opened it in Files then.  And there they were.  All the DNGs.

i’m never using an internal memory on a camera except for backup.  But I got my photos back!  Thank you Leica and B&H for working with me.

[Derbyshire Man]

Cognitive dissonance writ large. 
 

Glad at the happy ending! Your story has made me change my practice!

Edited May 19 by Derbyshire Man

[setuporg]

Well, in reality, it was about 900 photos out of 2,700 on the SSD, but fortunately, the ones I cared about the most.  The very fact that some of them came back is miraculous.

[gotium]

Did they make it possible to format the SSD from the camera? Or do you have to do that from a computer via usb?

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[Derbyshire Man]

7 hours ago, setuporg said:

Well, in reality, it was about 900 photos out of 2,700 on the SSD, but fortunately, the ones I cared about the most.  The very fact that some of them came back is miraculous.

They should be giving you an M11D as a goodwill gesture!

[Tseg]

7 hours ago, gotium said:

Did they make it possible to format the SSD from the camera? Or do you have to do that from a computer via usb?

Can format from the Fotos app, if desired.