Camera lockup. Bug?

[BebWill]

Camera: 400D, Age: 6 months

No problem until last week during our recent trip: we got a few issues (1 time a crazy automatic exposure = picture all black, and camera refusing to take a shot at least a dozen times as "supposdely enabled to focus" although the subject was clearly standing out from the background). Let's assume those were user errors. The issue worrying me most was that the camera unexepectedly locked-up on 3 occasions.

Symptoms: the camera is on with the default screen on LCD but no picture can be taken, no option can be changed, it cannot even be turned OFF! i.e. you "physically switch" to OFF, but the LCD screen remains ON. Bottom line: a crashed camera software.
Solution: remove battery for hard reset of camera

It seems this may be related to too quickly turning OFF and then ON again the camera (e.g. when the camera was ON, but went in sleep mode, and gets turned OFF and back ON quickly). Anyone else had this experience? Is it a known issue?

 

[BebWill]

Forgot to mention: firmware V1.0.4

 

[PatrikD]

Symptoms: the camera is on with the default screen on LCD but no
picture can be taken, no option can be changed, it cannot even be
turned OFF! i.e. you "physically switch" to OFF, but the LCD screen
remains ON. Bottom line: a crashed camera software.
Solution: remove battery for hard reset of camera

I have had this problem as well, on at least two occations. In at least one of those cases, low battery power probably had something to do with it. When I re-inserted the battery (can't remember if I had re-charged it by then) I got the Error 99 message.

PatrikD

 

[rose stalka]

This is always happening to my camera as well very fustrating I feel like i cant rely on this camera dont know whats going on if u have any ideas let me know .. Just not acceptable to keep having to take battery out to reset .

 

[dstamatis]

That's happened to me twice, last week, when I was downloading the images to my computer.

It would say that it lost the connection (I forgot the exact message) and the camera froze up.

I'm curious: are you using a 3rd-party battery?

D

 

[rose stalka]

no i am using all original eqip. I do have a Quantam lense that i cannot use at all on the digital only the film slr rebel as with this lens on it gives me error 99 all the time even if i take batterie out and put back in just not compatable with that lens i guess but i def have a problem with camera locking up then one time when camera locked up the dust cleaner came on very weird ..

 

[BebWill]

Using 100% Canon equipment. At time of lockups during our last trip, it was with Canon battery and EF 24-105 Canon lense...

I just updated firmware to 1.0.5, but this problem is not listed in their release letter, so I don't expect it fixed anything. And now that my memory cards are backed-up, I'll be able to play a bit more aggressively and try to identify the steps to reproduce the problem.

 

[MR7]

This happens on my 350D too, still looking for a solution as re-set by changing battery takes a long time.

 

[MR7]

Refer to comments at
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1031&message=23479279

 

[ledittmar]

Just guessing, a low battery or bad contacts, try cleaning battery contacts.

 

[CydeWeyz]

I was in the middle of taking pictures when my XTI froze up last night. I shoot using JPEG large fine, plus RAW. I had not used my camera in probably a month, and the battery was not fully charged, but it had only one notch down. The camera froze up after saving the RAW, but before the JPEG of the same picture. I was lucky to get that shot, because it was the best one of the night (baby pictures).

I didn't know what had happened, so I pulled the battery, put it back in and tried to take another picture. Nothing, but locked up LCD and a constant CF LED showing. I went home, put the battery on the charger, reloaded 1.0.5 firmware and went to bed. This morning I took a few shots and all seems well. I hope...

 

[jezterr]

hasn't happened, yet.

stop turning it on and off like that. just either press the play button or halfpress the shutter button and it'll turn back on. if you notice when you do that, the screen says "busy" so it's quite possibly doing something important to get back up from sleep mode that's not being processed through turning it on and off quickly.

that just seems bad.

--
i like the pretty pitchas.

 

[wkay]

are you using custom function 11? auto power save set to min 30sec? I've notice a trend by many cameras to lock in their most extreme power saving modes - some asynchronous interrupt problem (something not complete/happens when the camera wants to power down). Possibly a bad CF card too and camera cant deal with write errors. After that check lens contacts are clean (maybe a comm problem with the lens). After that send it back to Canon.

 

[Keith Cannataro]

For me it is very consistent as the battery level drops down to the last tick mark. It was not there long at that level. Soon before it was 1/2 full.

 

[BebWill]

Thanks all for your answers.

Just to update, this problem has not happened to me since then under normal shooting conditions. But I had no chance to do the "aggressive tests" yet.

(FYI: not using custom function, using default power settings, battery was charged as far as I recall - kept shooting for a few hours -, memory not showing any sign of trouble since then, so the current conclusion is maybe a problem with the lens connectors as I changed lens not long before)

 

[Lemming51]

Common items to check first before packing off to the Service Center:

• clean contacts between lens and camera; hotshoe and speedlight
• lens fully mounted (locking pin clicks in)
• remove/charge main battery. clean contacts on battery and camera.
• remove/replace date/time battery - CR2016 lithium button battery in slot next to main battery is often overlooked. see p. 155 of manual.
• make sure latest firmware is loaded.
• CF card. Some brands have issues that are addressed with latest firmware or with the card maker. See http://www.lexar.com/support/cust_advisory.html for an example. All brands can/will develop bad sectors with use and will need periodic reformatting to map those areas. Format in-camera, not on computer.

Thanks all for your answers.

Just to update, this problem has not happened to me since then
under normal shooting conditions. But I had no chance to do the
"aggressive tests" yet.

(FYI: not using custom function, using default power settings,
battery was charged as far as I recall - kept shooting for a few
hours -, memory not showing any sign of trouble since then, so the
current conclusion is maybe a problem with the lens connectors as I
changed lens not long before)