How to HARD RESET the Nex-6 ... FW update related

[blue_skies]

Ok folks, I had a little surprise after I updated the FW for the Nex-6 followed by the FW update for the SEL30M35 - the Nex-6 was effectively BRICKED.

Please note - both FW updates went smooth, without a hitch. I received the message "Lens update complete, Please remove battery pack from camera, reinsert and restart". Which I did, and ended up with a bricked camera.

Actually, technically, bricked is the wrong word, I had a live view in the LCD, AF was working, but I had no access to Menu button, and no information was displayed in the LCD, there was no switching to the EVF and the POWER BUTTON did not function - ie. I could not turn the camera OFF, only remove the battery again.

The remove-battery-for-a-minute-then-reinsert did also not help.

But a little trial and error ended up with this little trick:

• Put Nex-6 in M mode with top-dial
• Put the battery back in
• Press the soft Menu A and C buttons together with Fn button (I pressed all three)
• Wait for 8 seconds
• Nex-6 will reset

I was about to ask for help here on this forum, and get Sony on the phone tomorrow, but this little trick saved the day.

 

[kwa_Zulu]

Hi

Did the problem only happen with the lens fw update? because I have already updated this last week and all seems ok, I was thinking of the camera fw update but not sure now after reading your post.




Regards Steve

 

[blue_skies]

kwa_Zulu wrote:

Hi

Did the problem only happen with the lens fw update? because I have already updated this last week and all seems ok, I was thinking of the camera fw update but not sure now after reading your post.

Regards Steve

Yes, I updated the camera just fine. Then updated the lens just fine. No problems.

After the lens update, I powered down and removed the battery, per the instructions, and then re-inserted them and did a power-up.

It was at this point that the problem emerged.

Updating other lenses had no problems at all, neither had the updates to the other cameras.

I updated the 5N, 7, 6, E30, E50 all per 2/5/13 FW updates.

Previously I had updated the E24Z, 18200, 1855, 5N and 7 per previous FW updates.

 

[nzmacro]

Gees Henry, you had me worried there for a minute mate. I thought, oh boy this is not good at all. Mind you its still not. Especially coming from you, because I know you know what you are doing. Phew, glad it worked out with that trick. I'll bookmark that even though I don't have a 6.

All the best Henry, kind of spooky, but at least its sorted.

Danny.

 

[blue_skies]

nzmacro wrote:

Gees Henry, you had me worried there for a minute mate. I thought, oh boy this is not good at all. Mind you its still not. Especially coming from you, because I know you know what you are doing. Phew, glad it worked out with that trick. I'll bookmark that even though I don't have a 6.

All the best Henry, kind of spooky, but at least its sorted.

Danny.

--

Thanks Danny, appreciate the comments.

Yes, it did give me a big scare, and I followed the instructions to a tee, so I wonder what might have happened. Haven't heard from others that updated the E30M lense, using a Nex-6.

i was very surprised when I found the camera reset sequence, I was merely trying some ideas. It did not reset to factory defaults, mind you, it basically reset something in the camera, and the menus came back on.

Very strange.

 

[kaku]

That's awesome that you got it working again. But how on earth did you discover the camera reset sequence?

 

[malch]

blue_skies wrote:
Actually, technically, bricked is the wrong word, I had a live view in the LCD, AF was working, but I had no access to Menu button, and no information was displayed in the LCD, there was no switching to the EVF and the POWER BUTTON did not function - ie. I could not turn the camera OFF, only remove the battery again.

I had exactly the same thing happen when I updated the camera firmware on my NEX-6 this morning.

I was beginning to imagine boxing up the camera to go back to Sony. But after a couple of minutes it started operating normally. I did not perform a hard reset. It fixed itself all on its own. I'm guessing it will still running through some part of the firmware update process -- maybe just running a checksum or whatever?

I subsequently updated the firmware on my SEL50F18 without incident.


So to others who might experience this problem, I say don't panic, be patient and just wait a few minutes. You'll likely find that everything returns to a happy working state.

 

[blue_skies]

kaku wrote:

That's awesome that you got it working again. But how on earth did you discover the camera reset sequence?

Maybe Malch is right, and the camera would have recovered anyways. I did not let it run long on batteries, kept taking them out, until i tried to reset it.

Basically, think like a programmer and try different combinations. The one I mentioned is the last one I tried. But it took several minutes to get there ...

... long enough for a time out reset of some kind, if there is any.

 

[blue_skies]

malch wrote:

blue_skies wrote:
Actually, technically, bricked is the wrong word, I had a live view in the LCD, AF was working, but I had no access to Menu button, and no information was displayed in the LCD, there was no switching to the EVF and the POWER BUTTON did not function - ie. I could not turn the camera OFF, only remove the battery again.

I had exactly the same thing happen when I updated the camera firmware on my NEX-6 this morning.

I was beginning to imagine boxing up the camera to go back to Sony. But after a couple of minutes it started operating normally. I did not perform a hard reset. It fixed itself all on its own. I'm guessing it will still running through some part of the firmware update process -- maybe just running a checksum or whatever?

I subsequently updated the firmware on my SEL50F18 without incident.

So to others who might experience this problem, I say don't panic, be patient and just wait a few minutes. You'll likely find that everything returns to a happy working state.

Very interesting. My camera firmware updated fine, but it had the 1650PZ attached. Maybe the next lens update triggered something.

I like the idea of a timeout recovery, better than shipping to Laredo.

 

[pcmoore]

malch wrote:

blue_skies wrote:
Actually, technically, bricked is the wrong word, I had a live view in the LCD, AF was working, but I had no access to Menu button, and no information was displayed in the LCD, there was no switching to the EVF and the POWER BUTTON did not function - ie. I could not turn the camera OFF, only remove the battery again.

I had exactly the same thing happen when I updated the camera firmware on my NEX-6 this morning.

I was beginning to imagine boxing up the camera to go back to Sony. But after a couple of minutes it started operating normally. I did not perform a hard reset. It fixed itself all on its own. I'm guessing it will still running through some part of the firmware update process -- maybe just running a checksum or whatever?

Just to add another data point, I had the exact same experience: I updated the firmware on my NEX-6 without any issue and after I did the battery/power dance I was greeted by a live view display and nothing else, exactly as described by blue_skies. Remembering this post and reset trick, I set the camera down and loaded up the forums to (re)find the reset trick only to realize that once I picked up my camera it had appeared to right itself, just as malch described; granted, I don't think it took a couple of minutes in my case, perhaps a minute at most.

For those of you who experienced this issue, what lens did you have attached when you did the update? Was it a legacy/manual lens? For the record, I had a manual Canon FD attached and I wonder if that caused some extra hesitation when the camera first started with the new firmware.

 

[malch]

blue_skies wrote:

I had exactly the same thing happen when I updated the camera firmware on my NEX-6 this morning.
I was beginning to imagine boxing up the camera to go back to Sony. But after a couple of minutes it started operating normally. I did not perform a hard reset. It fixed itself all on its own. I'm guessing it will still running through some part of the firmware update process -- maybe just running a checksum or whatever?

I subsequently updated the firmware on my SEL50F18 without incident.

So to others who might experience this problem, I say don't panic, be patient and just wait a few minutes. You'll likely find that everything returns to a happy working state.

Very interesting. My camera firmware updated fine, but it had the 1650PZ attached. Maybe the next lens update triggered something.

Yes, I should have mentioned... I also had the SELP1650 attached when I updated the camera firmware.

After the camera was updated (and working normally) I swapped it for the SEL50F18 and updated that without incident.

 

[Yezariael]

Same here: NEX-6 with 1650PZ. Just live view on after update and no reaction to any button or power off... Waited about 2 minutes and everything went back to normal...

 

[myDingling]

I'll throw my hat in the ring and say it happened to me as well. It was the camera FW that did it to me (updated it before the lens) and I had my SEL50 attached. Seemed to have fixed itself after timing out I recall. Scary stuff

 

[ntsour]

Same here with 1650 on. Did a hard reset after a couple of minutes.

 

[cactusgeorge]

This happened to me as well. The hard reset works!

Please bookmark this thread!

blue_skies wrote:

Ok folks, I had a little surprise after I updated the FW for the Nex-6 followed by the FW update for the SEL30M35 - the Nex-6 was effectively BRICKED.

Please note - both FW updates went smooth, without a hitch. I received the message "Lens update complete, Please remove battery pack from camera, reinsert and restart". Which I did, and ended up with a bricked camera.

Actually, technically, bricked is the wrong word, I had a live view in the LCD, AF was working, but I had no access to Menu button, and no information was displayed in the LCD, there was no switching to the EVF and the POWER BUTTON did not function - ie. I could not turn the camera OFF, only remove the battery again.

The remove-battery-for-a-minute-then-reinsert did also not help.

But a little trial and error ended up with this little trick:

• Put Nex-6 in M mode with top-dial
• Put the battery back in
• Press the soft Menu A and C buttons together with Fn button (I pressed all three)
• Wait for 8 seconds
• Nex-6 will reset

I was about to ask for help here on this forum, and get Sony on the phone tomorrow, but this little trick saved the day.

--
Cheers,
Henry

 

[CopyCatz]

Had the same issue right after updating the NEX6. Only live view, no buttons working. After a few minutes the new fw seemed to kick in. After that my 50f15 and 30M35 went without a hitch. I really wish the fw updates could be a litle less nerve wrecking

 

[RichardLarssen]

Happened to me too after updating camera. no need to reset, just wailted a minute and it fiexed itself....

 

[privater]

Same here, but I have two waiting period, one for the NEX-6 itself, the other is for 50f18 lens. both took me 2-3 minutes waiting. I'm almost call Sony to RMA.

But when I put usb cable in, the Mass storage shows up and everything goes fine.

I tried turned on and off again without problem so far. I think the problem is it need some time to uncompress all things and patch to the system. You can see from this attached image, the NEX-6's firmware is more than 3 times of NEX-7, even if NEX-6 have the same processor or even more memory, it still needs time to processing this amount of data.

 

[novak977]

privater wrote:

Same here, but I have two waiting period, one for the NEX-6 itself, the other is for 50f18 lens. both took me 2-3 minutes waiting. I'm almost call Sony to RMA.

But when I put usb cable in, the Mass storage shows up and everything goes fine.

I tried turned on and off again without problem so far. I think the problem is it need some time to uncompress all things and patch to the system. You can see from this attached image, the NEX-6's firmware is more than 3 times of NEX-7, even if NEX-6 have the same processor or even more memory, it still needs time to processing this amount of data.

I think the problem is that camera thinks it is still connected to computer via USB and needs time to time-out if it hasn't be properly hardware-removed.

By the way - how do I find the links from your image to update the lenses?

I did update my NEX-6 and has the same 2 minutes of liveview only before it woke-up.

thanks!

--
http://www.supernovak.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/rogic FED-S (my father's) > Canon AE1 (my brother's) > Minolta Maxxum 3xi (my first precious) > Minolta Dynax 400si (hello Canada) > Minolta Dimage 7i (darling) > Konica Minolta 5D (first DSLR) > Sony Alpha A100 (killer baby) > Sony Alpha A700 (serious tool) > Canon 5DMkII (weird computer with average lenses) > Back to A700 (reassured about the greatness) + A900 (depth of colours and pixels)

 

[Don Christie]

I had a similar problem on the 5R. I just kept taking the battery out, then back in, then turn on camera and plugged into laptop. After third try it worked fine.