Leica M11 Wired Connection

[vitochrome]

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Made an interesting discovery today and was curious if it was just me experiencing it or if anyone else had noticed similar behavior. 

I connected my m11p to my ipad with a thunderbolt 4 cable hoping the extra overhead would allow faster transfers than a slower cable. Strangely, it just started charging the m11. 

I went into the camera settings and changed the connection setting from apple MFi to PTP and all of a sudden it worked fine. If I use the slower cable provided with the iPad, it works fine with the MFi protocol. Worth mentioning the TB4 cable I'm using was purchased at the apple store and recommended by them, if not apple branded itself, and works to connect my ssd to my iPad just fine.

Has anyone else noticed this? Will switching to PTP affect the transfers in any way? 

This isn't really a big deal given all the other problems the m11 has but just thought it was an interesting observation.  

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[Photoworks]

In the late FOTOS app, the changes allow faster USB-C cable 3.1 and 3.2 before it was only possible with USB-C 2.1 with MFi and very slow, so that WIFI was faster.

I use tether shooting in PTP all the time with USB-c in capture one all the time with the SL3, and it changes at the same time.

on M11 tether now only works in the Tether menu only after 1.6 version, and it does not save to SD at the same time.

[Stef63]

On 3/14/2025 at 11:52 PM, vitochrome said:

This isn't really a big deal given all the other problems the m11 has but just thought it was an interesting observation.  

All USB-C cables may look the same, but in reality, they are not. There’s a lot of protocol handshaking happening when connecting different cables to devices. So, the behavior you’re experiencing isn’t unusual. 

Now, I’m curious about your last point.  Can you elaborate what other problems the m11 has?  

[marchyman]

To expand on Stef63's post

USB-C only defines the physical connector.

USB-2, 3, 3.x, 4, etc. defines the protocols and speeds.  Some of the faster speeds also require the USB-C connector.  To further confuse things there are sub-divisions within the various numbers.  Example:

USB-3.2 Gen 1x1 is USB-3.1 Gen 1 renamed.  It's also USB-3.0. 5 Gbps max speed.
USB-3.2 Gen 1x2 requires a USB-C connector.  10 Gbps max speed.
USB-3.2 Gen 2x1 is USB-3.1 Gen 2 renamed. 10 Gbps max speed.
USB-3.2 Gen 2x2 requires a USB-C connector. 20 Gbps max speed.

A cheap "USB-C" cable often only supports USB-2 speeds.  These days I try to buy USB-C/3.2 gen 2.2 cables.  Even that is overkill for my M11 which maxes out at USB-3.1 GEN 1 speeds.

[vitochrome]

6 hours ago, Stef63 said:

All USB-C cables may look the same, but in reality, they are not. There’s a lot of protocol handshaking happening when connecting different cables to devices. So, the behavior you’re experiencing isn’t unusual. 

Now, I’m curious about your last point.  Can you elaborate what other problems the m11 has?  

I understand that usb c cables are different, that's why i specified that it was a thunderbolt 4 cable, which should be backward compatible with all slower usb protocols, just not reaching it's max possible speed. 

The m11 has had freezing issues and memory corruption issues since its release and now internal ssd issues (on the P variant at least). The freezing issues seem to be mostly under control since the most recent update, but there are still people reporting problems. 

[vitochrome]

1 hour ago, marchyman said:

To expand on Stef63's post

USB-C only defines the physical connector.

USB-2, 3, 3.x, 4, etc. defines the protocols and speeds.  Some of the faster speeds also require the USB-C connector.  To further confuse things there are sub-divisions within the various numbers.  Example:

USB-3.2 Gen 1x1 is USB-3.1 Gen 1 renamed.  It's also USB-3.0. 5 Gbps max speed.
USB-3.2 Gen 1x2 requires a USB-C connector.  10 Gbps max speed.
USB-3.2 Gen 2x1 is USB-3.1 Gen 2 renamed. 10 Gbps max speed.
USB-3.2 Gen 2x2 requires a USB-C connector. 20 Gbps max speed.

A cheap "USB-C" cable often only supports USB-2 speeds.  These days I try to buy USB-C/3.2 gen 2.2 cables.  Even that is overkill for my M11 which maxes out at USB-3.1 GEN 1 speeds.

Like I said above I understand this, but really it has nothing to do with my post. A thunderbolt 4 cable that supports much more (40Gbps) than the fastest speed the m11 can do should have no problem connecting. It wouldn't connect at all when I had it set to the apple MFi protocol but would connect with PTP and was just curious why that is.

[vitochrome]

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20 hours ago, Photoworks said:

on M11 tether now only works in the Tether menu only after 1.6 version, and it does not save to SD at the same time.

Interesting that the tether won't save to the SD. 

20 hours ago, Photoworks said:

In the late FOTOS app, the changes allow faster USB-C cable 3.1 and 3.2 before it was only possible with USB-C 2.1 with MFi and very slow, so that WIFI was faster.

I heard about this update, but thunderbolt 4 is faster than 3.2 and won't connect at all with MFi. Just weird that a usb 2.0 cable will work with MFi but not a faster one, which needs to use PTP. 

[Photoworks]

1 hour ago, vitochrome said:

Interesting that the tether won't save to the SD. 

Leica changed the firmware so that people can connect the camera to Lightroom and import photos, it was always an issue before.
I don't like it either.

1 hour ago, vitochrome said:

I heard about this update, but thunderbolt 4 is faster than 3.2 and won't connect at all with MFi. Just weird that a usb 2.0 cable will work with MFi but not a faster one, which needs to use PTP. 

well you have to think about what generation you are using, and the Software, the camera, the iPad, and the cable all need to be in sync.

The camera was always able to use faster cables, in fact, I was using the camera with a fast cable to capture one, I have tested more than 10 cables, and they all worked in C1P and only 2 connected in FOTOS.

The limitation was the Fotos app accepting only MFi cert 2.0 cables.  At that time the iPhone didn't have USB-c, and it is good that the software has been updated, so there is no more need to use the MFi setting on the newer devices.
 

thunderbolt is not on the camera, so that does not make a difference, you can still use the cables at USB-C speeds and to charge.

thunderbolt is an Apple vendetta. All Macs are limited to a USB-C speed of 20MBps and they try to promote Thunderbolt.

On PC's you get 40Mbps speeds on USB-C 3.2 , you will get better performance with your SSD external drives on a PC