M11-D internal memory fault and freezing

[Mahesh]

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6 hours ago, Derbyshire Man said:

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

to make more photos disappear by magic? 🤣 or should I say make some of them appear by magic.

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[Derbyshire Man]

14 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.

Just thinking about those numbers it seems your cameras prediction of 500 shots to go was probably wildly wrong. 2,700 images x 90mb comes out at about 245gb and not far off capacity once there are some trash files or whatever. Sounds like the disk handling is pretty knackered. Leica have never said but I strongly suspect that the major cause of crashes has been disk removal and reinsertion when the SD card was copied to computers and the OS has a fit when it comes back different. 
 

What’s also alarming is that I’ve had disc full errors on my cameras (including M11D) and since yours went off I’m not aware of any beta which has been sent out to address whatever happened. 
 

Clearly a full internal disc should be failing gracefully not catastrophically! 

[setuporg]

What’s interesting is the SSD was full and shots continued on the SD card.  The last shot on the SSD was 5767.  The first shot on the card was 5768 and last shot on the card was number 6037.  The newly recovered files contained a few shots numbered 6038 and later, dated on the day of the failure and then in January and March.  So I tried to shoot one and folks at Leica tried more!  Apparently the “OS” had a wrong idea of the remaining space.  It could have overwritten the directory.  I am sure that if I had the original storage as a block device and it was physically intact I could have recovered almost everything.

The lesson is that Leica is not a software company.  Stick to film.:)

Edited May 20 by setuporg

[charlesphoto99]

This is why I use 64GB cards or less (and would never rely on an internal hard drive with any camera make or brand).

Don't put all of your eggs into one basket as the old saying goes...

[maxpower]

I like the idea of internal storage as a backup but I would never use it as primary storage yeah, and of course this should never have happened but the fact that they tried to recover and send you the photos (even if its not all of them) is in a way comforting to hear, makes it seem like they care a little bit more than people give them credit for - even though it did take a long while. 

[SrMi]

I also never use internal storage as the primary one, but only as a backup in case I forget the card or as an overflow. In any case, it is good to have it.

[setuporg]

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I used to do the same but X2D lulled me into complacency.  It’s 1TB SSD never failed me…. M11-P never did either, I shot for more than a year with it without a problem, filling up the SSD over and over.  A proper software company would keep it working, but apparently the D had enough differences to cause a disturbance.

[JNK100]

22 hours ago, setuporg said:

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.

That's great news and service!

[SrMi]

42 minutes ago, setuporg said:

I used to do the same but X2D lulled me into complacency.  It’s 1TB SSD never failed me…. M11-P never did either, I shot for more than a year with it without a problem, filling up the SSD over and over.  A proper software company would keep it working, but apparently the D had enough differences to cause a disturbance.

I do not think that is a D issue, but you got bad luck with your sample.

[Derbyshire Man]

2 hours ago, SrMi said:

I do not think that is a D issue, but you got bad luck with your sample.

I’ve had internal memory full error on my M11D too which took a couple of goes to sort itself out, i now daren’t format the drive or use it for files. I’ve had SD card errors on my M11M. The firmware side of these things has not been acceptable.

[setuporg]

8 hours ago, maxpower said:

I like the idea of internal storage as a backup but I would never use it as primary storage yeah, and of course this should never have happened but the fact that they tried to recover and send you the photos (even if its not all of them) is in a way comforting to hear, makes it seem like they care a little bit more than people give them credit for - even though it did take a long while. 

This is the first time in my life that happened, and the fact that some photos came back from the afterworld is deeply gratifying.  When the package disappeared on its last mile I thought the universe is not sure it must be allowed.  Just to imagine that it would have been lost forever!

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[Tuan Anh]

DON’T up to 2.2.2 firmware.This bug appears again.Now it annoys me T.T

[setuporg]

I don’t see any use for internal SSD now but a rare overflow backup.  And you must offload files every day.

[lct]

Same use as external SSD for computer. Easy to transfer files between SD and SSD too. I have no experience with the M11-D though... People interested in a "classic" M are not supposed to want an SSD i guess?

[setuporg]

A sign of a proper software process is incremental feature updates with no regressions.  I still believe the D demonstrated a regression in SSD handling.  This is why the software OGs here could form a company to help Leica improve.:). Given Leica already uses 3rd party products such as the alleged AF in Q3 from Japan (as well as a lens designed in Japan), it could benefit from the best practices developed in Silicon Valley.  Let’s vibe code some embedded systems! 

[lct]

The SSD of the M11 works so well for me that I could hardly do without it so i suspect it must be an M11-D problem, but i'm no techie.

[paulscr]

Adding to thread: yesterday, I transferred the 20 photos from my m11M internal memory to my iPad via Lightroom (a routine I’ve done two years, since owning the m11). 
 

This morning, switched on camera - and flashed up “internal memory full” message - only had twenty photos. Anyway - I formatted the internal drive and carried on.  
 

a bit worrying - only had the m11M a couple of months. 
 

obviously - I can get an external ssd - but I’d actually like the 256gb internal memory to work as expected

 

[hdmesa]

19 hours ago, paulscr said:

Adding to thread: yesterday, I transferred the 20 photos from my m11M internal memory to my iPad via Lightroom (a routine I’ve done two years, since owning the m11). 
 

This morning, switched on camera - and flashed up “internal memory full” message - only had twenty photos. Anyway - I formatted the internal drive and carried on.  
 

a bit worrying - only had the m11M a couple of months. 
 

obviously - I can get an external ssd - but I’d actually like the 256gb internal memory to work as expected

 

When you were seeing there were only 20 photos, was that reviewing in camera? Could you have been reviewing images from the SD card instead of the SSD? 

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[Mahesh]

On 5/22/2025 at 9:01 AM, paulscr said:

Adding to thread: yesterday, I transferred the 20 photos from my m11M internal memory to my iPad via Lightroom (a routine I’ve done two years, since owning the m11). 
 

This morning, switched on camera - and flashed up “internal memory full” message - only had twenty photos. Anyway - I formatted the internal drive and carried on.  
 

a bit worrying - only had the m11M a couple of months. 
 

obviously - I can get an external ssd - but I’d actually like the 256gb internal memory to work as expected

 

There is a term for this - misselling

[Derbyshire Man]

On 5/22/2025 at 9:01 AM, paulscr said:

Adding to thread: yesterday, I transferred the 20 photos from my m11M internal memory to my iPad via Lightroom (a routine I’ve done two years, since owning the m11). 
 

This morning, switched on camera - and flashed up “internal memory full” message - only had twenty photos. Anyway - I formatted the internal drive and carried on.  
 

a bit worrying - only had the m11M a couple of months. 
 

obviously - I can get an external ssd - but I’d actually like the 256gb internal memory to work as expected

 

I’ve had this. It’s a firmware bug introduced in one of the recent firmwares. Pointed it out in the beta but I sense that Leica has decided the firmware is good enough as radio silence. I hope they come back to it as it is very disconcerting and a continuing embarrassment to get this type of error.