R5 issue - lockup & buffer not clearing?

[Colin Creevey]

I have an issue that I believe is related to my R5 but I cannot be sure. I am using a Canon R5 running firmware v1.8.1 tethered to C1 set to record to both internal memory card and to C1.

After some arbitrary period of time I've noticed that my R5 has stopped sending images to C1. I believe, although I could be mistaken, that C1 reports the camera is disconnected at this point. Either way, C1 stops receiving images, the internal card is not being written too and instead the buffer has filled up.

The R5 then becomes non-responsive meaning I cannot interact or go into any menu. The only way I have figured out to resolve this is turn the camera off, remove the battery, put it back in and turn it back on.

Doing so resolves the issue for another arbitrary time period before it occurs again. In addition, once turned back on, all images in the buffer are lost, which is understandable but very annoying. It is difficult to trouble shoot as this time period can occur from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours.

I was recording my last shoot and am now going through the task of reviewing the shoot to determine at what specific points in time I had lost frames.

I'm not sure if it is the same issue but at the last shoot an issue occurred where images were not being written to C1 but this time I got an error message - Err 70.

I removed the current battery, marked it and placed in a new one. I didn't get another Err 70 but I did get the original lockup further down the track.

Trying to trouble shoot the issue I have isolated those two LP-E6 batteries in case they could be the cause.

Looking at the battery stats of the battery I removed upon seeing Err 70, it reports 62% charge remaining (at time of removal) shutter count 220 and recharge performance 1/3.

The second LP-E6 battery which I finished the shoot with reports 20% remaining, 769 shutter count and recharge performance 1/3.

I've pointed out the C1 disconnects to a few others that tether with C1 and they thought it could be a loose cable but I don't think so. At my last shoot the cable was secured into the camera and neither the camera or laptop were being interacted with. The camera was mounted on sticks and a physical remote shutter was being used to trigger the camera.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to troubleshoot? Has anyone experienced something similar? Does anyone know if the R5 or C1 has some type of debug log I can dump?

 

[Abbott Schindler]

It might also be the card. I had similar issues several firmware versions ago (v1.4) using a particular brand of card, and it happened with 2 R5's, not tethered, though.

What would happen: I'd be shooting fast bursts (RF 24-105L or RF 100-500L) intermixed with video. The cameras would work perfectly for a while and then lockup really bad. Once I was able to reset by the traditional "remove the battery, wait a few seconds, and try again" method. Didn't work. I also tried removing battery and lens, which also didn't work. Once the camera locked up for 3 whole days, which I assume was because an electronic component had stored something and its current had to drain completely before it would reset. Just a guess, though.

Then I called CPS and the first thing he asked was if I'd also removed the cards (I have both CFexpress and SD cards installed, although I record to 1 at a time).

I hadn't thought of cards, but that's what it turned out to be. I switched card brands and the problem went away. Then I did R/W testing of the cards and discovered that the not-working cards had much lower Write performance than the other cards (~50-60% of the manufacturer's claim). In fact, the CFe card performed more like a fast SD card! Whereas my other brands all write much closer to their rated speeds.

A couple of weeks ago I tried those slow cards with v1.8.1 and neither camera hung, but I'm still leary of the cards. Apparently Canon's fixed some of the [I assume} R/W timing attributes of the cameras, but there's always the possibility that not all are fixed, and also that there are still glitches with tethering.

Anyway, long story short: try different cards and let us know what happens.