Previously flawless M240 fails after 30 day return period

[chaospress]

I purchased a new M240 on July 23.... Today for the first time I hit a bump in the road with it. It has worked flawlessly up to now, but on the last part of a 45 minute walk, it made no exposure two different times with the shutter click. Both times I shut the camera off and it was up and running again. Since I've come to expect this camera was trouble free after already having returned another copy that needed shutter replacement from Leica, this is cause for concern.

I wasn't using live view and menu settings were the same as I've always had them.
I'd expect for the price of a new M240 it would be bullet proof. It's a great camera but it has to work.

What are your experiences or thoughts?

 

[Godfrey]

My experience: I purchased a new M-P from Leica USA as upgrade to my M9 in February of this year. It has worked flawlessly, and has now recorded over 3500 exposures.

My thoughts: Call Leica and talk to Customer Service before making statements about problems on internet forums. Leica USA has gone out of their way on several occasions to ensure that I received the help I needed with their products. No machine is ever perfect.

G

 

[f16sunshine]

^^
Like G said. Call Leica USA. Ask them to have your area sales rep call you.
Maybe there is a bad batch or mishandling somewhere in the supply stream. Most likely just bad luck.

Cheers

 

[Jan Pedersen]

Could it possibly be the memory card and not the camera? Just a thought.

 

[chaospress]

My thoughts: Call Leica and talk to Customer Service before making statements about problems on internet forums. Leica USA has gone out of their way on several occasions to ensure that I received the help I needed with their products. No machine is ever perfect.

G

Valid point, although part of the reason it probably wasn't the first thing that came to mind is because I was on the phone with them re the first M240 I had, and while they were very patient and kind, the upshot of what they told me was to "send it in." At this point I am in no mood to send this camera in after having had to return the first one.

That no machine is ever perfect as far as functioning without mishap is simply untrue. I've used electronic digital cameras for years that never required rebooting. In fact none of them did- these 2 M240's have been the first.

I am not out to bash Leica, they're great cameras, otherwise I wouldn't have used them for the past 35 years. But please understand my frustration here. I haven't stated anything other than what has occurred.

 

[jsrockit]

3rd party batteries?

 

[f16sunshine]

Again... Get the sales rep for your area.

In 2012 I had one of the best CS experiences ever with any company.
Leica put the nw rep in touch with me, he helped me with an insurance claim after a theft.
Then when my replacement lenses arrived and One had a mechanical issue, it was again the rep who sorted things out .
If you bought your camera new through an authorized dealer, they (leica) have someone out there to help with problems.
At least they did three years ago. I bet they still do.

We are fortunate in North America. Leica Solms does not have the same reputation of good responsive Customer service.

 

[uhoh7]

I purchased a new M240 on July 23.... Today for the first time I hit a bump in the road with it. It has worked flawlessly up to now, but on the last part of a 45 minute walk, it made no exposure two different times with the shutter click. Both times I shut the camera off and it was up and running again. Since I've come to expect this camera was trouble free after already having returned another copy that needed shutter replacement from Leica, this is cause for concern.

I wasn't using live view and menu settings were the same as I've always had them.
I'd expect for the price of a new M240 it would be bullet proof. It's a great camera but it has to work.

What are your experiences or thoughts?

My M9 did exactly them same thing. If it works well after removing the battery, I would replace the card with a new one and see what happens.

I finnally isolated my issue: never format card in camera with M9. Just erase all. Once I instituted this policy, the camera stopped freezing and cards last forever. 🙂

 

[chaospress]

Re memory cards and batteries:

The memory card is a SanDisk Extreme 45MB/s 16BG card. What it did do in the past couple weeks is stop in the middle of shooting video with a message saying something about the card being too slow to keep shooting video. I didn't give that much thought since I don't shoot much video anyway. At any rate though, I've never had a card cause a problem on a digital camera.

Battery is the original Leica battery and charge on it at the time of the misfires was 65%.

 

[Godfrey]

Re memory cards and batteries:

The memory card is a SanDisk Extreme 45MB/s 16BG card. What it did do in the past couple weeks is stop in the middle of shooting video with a message saying something about the card being too slow to keep shooting video. I didn't give that much thought since I don't shoot much video anyway. At any rate though, I've never had a card cause a problem on a digital camera.

Battery is the original Leica battery and charge on it at the time of the misfires was 65%.

It is a difficult to find spec, but the typ 240 cameras were designed to work with 90 MB/s cards. The tech rep at Leica told me that when I saw video artifacts and asked. I replaced my cards with the higher spec and the artifacts disappeared.

G

 

[shadowfox]

Maybe ask for a loaner if they want you to send it in.
Leica wants to be identified as a luxury brand, so they should back it up with luxury service.

Whatever happens, keep reporting your experience with them (Leica). I'm in agreement with you, at the price point, the least it should be is reliable.

 

[gdi]

FWIW...

I have had at least 10 DSLRs, 6 mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras, and 5 digital RFs - I had to send 2 of those in for service (1 Leica and 1 Epson).

So, my experience points to better reliability for any except RFs - and about equal reliability between Epson and Leica....

 

[jaapv]

We are fortunate in North America. Leica Solms does not have the same reputation of good responsive Customer service.

That really depends on the forum posts you read - I would say blame and praise is spread fairly evenly over both.
CS Solms is certainly a washout though. the building is deserted...
I usually deal with Wetzlar - much better.😀😛
Seriously, I only had one failure of CS with the Mothership in over forty years. For the rest they have been exemplary in personal communication, work quality, responsiveness and loaners.

 

[chaospress]

Well, I charged the battery a bit, put in a SanDisk Ultra II 2GB card, and went out again for an hour and made 30 exposures. I have no idea how that card compares to the other, but there were no problems this time, so maybe this was a rare glitch that won't be repeated too often or hopefully not at all.

I certainly wouldn't have posted this soon except that I think my patience was all used up trying to suss out the issue with the first camera I returned that had to have the shutter replaced. I'll see how it goes this weekend.

 

[Darthfeeble]

Formatting?

Formatting?

My M9 did exactly them same thing. If it works well after removing the battery, I would replace the card with a new one and see what happens.

I finnally isolated my issue: never format card in camera with M9. Just erase all. Once I instituted this policy, the camera stopped freezing and cards last forever. 🙂

I have done nothing BUT formatting the card in both of the M9s that I've owned and never had a lick of trouble with either the new one or the used one that I shoot now. I only use SanDisk Extreme or Extreme Pro cards (on all my gear except the RD1) and having had bad luck with a couple 3rd party batteries, use only factory batteries.

 

[Godfrey]

Same here: I formatted my cards in the M9 after every session and never had any problems with the camera. I used HP, Transcend, and Sandisk cards in it.

G

 

[jaapv]

There are, in general, complaints about M cameras locking up (although I do not experience the issue). Leica has addressed some bugs with the latest firmware update which appears to have cleared the problem, or very nearly so.
Make sure you are running 2.0.2.5

 

[rscheffler]

If you haven't yet, I would suggest updating to the latest firmware. For the past couple years I've had consistently 'random' lock-ups with the camera about once every 1000 frames on average. After the last firmware update, lock-ups have happened much, much less frequently.

 

[chaospress]

I do usually delete individual files on the card from time to time. Someone said not to do that, but there's nothing in the manual that says not to, and the camera is set up for it, presumably for a reason. It's never caused a problem on the various digital cameras I've had before.

 

[jaapv]

Re memory cards and batteries:

The memory card is a SanDisk Extreme 45MB/s 16BG card. What it did do in the past couple weeks is stop in the middle of shooting video with a message saying something about the card being too slow to keep shooting video. I didn't give that much thought since I don't shoot much video anyway. At any rate though, I've never had a card cause a problem on a digital camera.

Battery is the original Leica battery and charge on it at the time of the misfires was 65%.

Well, you just did. That sounds like a card that needs to be restored using SD Formatter.
If you just delete your files you will leave fragments of data on the card which will clog it up. A normal format in the camera will not remove them. SD Formatter, which is the official program by the SD Association, will restore the file structure to its original state when the card was new.