Hi all. for a week I haven't been able to properly boot my EOS M.
I have a feeling that I screwed it up by removing the card too soon a few times (should have paid more attention to the warnings before. oops)
so, when I try to turn it on with an ML card the LED starts blinking rapidly in red indefinitely. the only thing that can be done is either press off (which makes the LED turn solid red indefinitely) or remove the battery.
When I try to turn the camera on without the ML card the LED again rapidly blinks indefinitely, only this time in green.
Funny enough, I still manage to boot the camera up after some 5 or 10 minutes of retries, but it will give me a hard time again next boot.
question: has anyone come across this before? can this camera be saved?
If it helps I have had the camera for over a year and have been using ML from day one. May be unrelated but never had a glitch until a week ago when I started fiddling with the DualISO (photo) feature. removed the card without wait a few times (dumbass, I know).
Thanks everyone involved in ML. I film live events and without ML this camera is of no use to my work.
an update:
lately it's taking a lot longer than 10 minutes to boot the camera (around 40 min).
thanks already
It seems that maybe it is hanging when reading the card. Have you tried other cards? You might also try this:
Remove card, remove battery, reinsert battery and start camera without card--that usually works for me. Next step is in the Canon menus reset to default settings. If that helps you should probably also delete the ML settings file on the card to go back to the ML default settings. If you're still having problems turn off the camera boot flag by running the ML installer and waiting a minute for it to turn off the boot flag. Worse case scenario reinstall the Canon 2.0.2 firmware and hope for the best.
hi Daniel, thanks for your work with ML and eos M.
So, with no card the camera behaves in the same way (blinking green light). already tried resetting canon's and ML's to default; no cake.
I am now in the process running ML installer to turn off camera boot flag, if I manage to turn the camera on that is.
one thing I didn't mention: When the camera boots from the ML card it works just fine. When it boots from non ML cards it goes haywire, freezing whenever I take a picture, turning off unexpectedly and other bugs . what gives?
I have a baaad feeling...
A little warning: if you turn off the boot flag, and you can no longer turn it back on, we will have no possibility to investigate the issue.
Can you try the display test from here? http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=14732
Can you run it a couple of times without issues? (to rule out a hardware problem)
Do you have access to a second Canon camera that runs ML? That would make it easier to get Canon's diagnostic messages from the startup process.
Also, if you still have a ML card with ROM0.BIN and ROM1.BIN under ML/LOGS, make a backup of those files. I hope we won't need those, but just in case.
Quote from: a1ex on November 27, 2015, 02:56:15 PM
A little warning: if you turn off the boot flag, and you can no longer turn it back on, we will have no possibility to investigate the issue.
Yikes! Good to know.
I do have access to a second ML ready eosM to run tests. already backed up roms, also saved a file named log000.log which was sitting in the sd's root.
for the display test all I need is copy the autoexec_2.bin to the sd?
thanks for the hand.
Quote from: dfort on November 27, 2015, 05:12:20 PM
Yikes! Good to know.
That's the scary feeling that we all thrive on, right?
Love living on the edge...
Btw, I hope you get your M back in working order soon @Ernanie
Quote from: Ernani on November 27, 2015, 05:48:40 PM
for the display test all I need is copy the autoexec_2.bin to the sd?
Yes, but make sure the filename remains autoexec.bin (overwrite the old one).
QuoteBtw, I hope you get your M back in working order soon @Ernanie
thanks mate. :)
update: I replaced the autoexec.bin from an ML card with the display test autoexec. after closing the card door the display backlight turned on but no image appeared. pressing the on/off button brought me back to the "forever blinking green LED".
today I had no luck in turning on the camera like I did before. it just stays there blinking its LED like there's no tomorrow.
if I ever manage to boot it again I might as well try Daniel's idea to turn off the boot flag as kind of a last resort. may be worth a try.
grateful u guys.
by the way, same card with replaced autoexec works perfectly on the second M1.
That means, our test code is running. However, the display not showing anything is a big warning - it might be a hardware issue. If you start the camera a couple of times, it might work at some point, I guess.
Here's a LED blinking test for EOS M: autoexec.bin (http://a1ex.magiclantern.fm/blink/EOSM/autoexec.bin)
It should blink the card activity LED (I guess the red one). On EOS M, the green blink you are seeing is done from a different CPU. I hope at least this one works every time.
The next step would be printing Canon's debug messages and decoding them with a different camera. You may get in touch with me on IRC once you are ready.
The led blinking autoexec is working. whenever I close the battery door I get a continuous red LED intermittent signal.
tried the display test some 20 times having the same result. backlight on/no image.
I'd appreciate a lot your help but I'm afraid I'll bug the hell out of you for the lack of computer skills. I'm not "stoopid" but seeing you guys I feel kinda dumb.
Should not be a problem (most of us feel the very same at times). Trust him, he knows what he is doing.
ok. let me first learn how to use irc then I get back for the lesson.
a1ex, I got to your post about Blinking debug message (who's idea was it anyway? genius...). it took me to a page with a programming language but I don't know how to compile it.
Am I in the right track?
The decoding module is already compiled (copy the .mo to ML/MODULES on the card).
The blinker: autoexec.bin (http://a1ex.magiclantern.fm/debug/EOSM-blinkmsg/autoexec.bin)
The messages are not saved on the card (yet), so you can just take a screenshot with the latest messages (which probably look like an error).
ok, the deblinker module is loaded to the active camera. the autoxec blinker is on the faulty camera which was turned on and now is blinking like crazy. display is pitch black.
Forgot to add: on the active camera, select Debug -> Decode LED blinks. After that, start the faulty camera and let it blink.
the cameras seem to be talking to each other. I let them chat for some minutes but was unable to save a screenshot. will try again.
just to be sure, for how long should I let them talk: 20 seconds, 30 minutes?
I'm pointing the camera lens directly onto the faulty cam's LED even if there's no focus. seem to work best.
When I tested it, the 60D took exactly 15 minutes, then it shut down before it finished to boot properly (probably some watchdog timer).
I hope the EOS M is a bit more patient, since I don't know how to disable this timer. If the timeout occurs without any error, we'll try a second binary, which will skip the first messages.
on it
they're doing their business at the moment. is it normal to get random characters like "__B_@_A_ _ _ ML" ?
Nope; unfortunately, if that happens, you have to restart. It can probably be fixed by adjusting the exposure and taking care with nearby light sources.
ok, will retry. what am I supposed to see if everything goes right? a readable error message?
Yes, readable messages.
no matter what settings I use I only get gibberish. I suspect the problem is on the way the M is blinking its LED: instead of a solid color alternating on and off (which I believe would be the proper manner) it alternates between green, red and yellow rapidly. seems we're running out of options.
Indeed.
Let's see if we can do file i/o. Delete ML/LOGS/ROM*.BIN (since you already made backups) and try to start ML (with a regular nightly). After about 1 minute, remove the card and see if the ROM files were re-created.
No need to upload them, I only want to know if they were created or not.
no. weren't created.
however all I did was reinstate the original autoexe.bin. maybe I should try a fresh build?
fresh build didn't do the trick either. :-\
From the install guide:
Right after opening the card door, Canon firmware accesses the card without turning on the LED (yes, with the main switch turned off). If you remove the card too early, the camera will freeze and will drain the battery, or even cause permanent damage! You will be running random code (remember you are loading executable code from the card), and we can't do anything about it without reflashing Canon firmware with our own code.
Does anyone know what that means? could it be tried as an "all or nothing" last chance?
Since the display test didn't work, I wouldn't rush to reflash the main firmware. The display test only uses bootloader routines, so it should work even if the main firmware is corrupted.
We can still try to ignore the green LED - just tell me the RGB spotmeter values for the 3 colors.
ok, will try to read the blinks anyway and post a screenshot of it.
Quotetell me the RGB spotmeter values for the 3 colors.
if that is what u meant.
wait, what if I place a colour filter in front of the lens? long shot but maybe...
here is a short clip of how the M uses its LED. http://we.tl/ZeO47hXPwy
side note: I was using the dualiso module in conjunction with the full res silent picture build when it started to bug. might be related.
tried with blue and red filter. no message.
If you use a red filter, I suggest fine-tuning it like this:
- first make only the green LED blink, and bring down the exposure until the other camera detects no pulses
- then, let the diagnostic blinker run, and hope it syncs
:o :o :o It worked!!
I'll try and save a snapshot every time the screen is full. good news is that the M doesn't seem to get tired and goes beyond the 15 minutes merrily blinking away.
I must confess it is quite exhilarating to watch this dead camera using its secondary processor to talk about "the other side" via a blinking LED while I hold 3d glasses in front of it to filter the green signals... kudos to you a1ex!
http://www.mediafire.com/download/8blueag7jxvah6l/New+folder.rar
these are the screens I captured. after that first lucky time (VRAM5.PPM) I couldn't again make it work even if I used the same exposure (f2.0 - iso 6400 - shutter 640).
in the meantime the camera somehow turned on a couple of times and I could use it normally. if it happens again is there anything I can do that would help?
today I am having better luck with the blinker. will be posting screenshots soon. (is it ok to send them via mediafire? I don't know how to post pictures here in the forum)
ernani
There are probably several of us watching on the sidelines and we'd love to see some photos and screenshots. This post helped me:
http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=10760.0
Basically what I do is copy the BBcode URL that Flickr generates and only keep what is in the "img" tags in the post. (Including the opening and closing "img" tags in the brackets of course.)
My internet connection was down for a couple of days so I went on troubleshooting the eos m and made a PDF with snapshots and the progress I made.
http://www.mediafire.com/view/4el1ssn7ktn7smc/magic_lantern_fix.pdf
will also post some screenshots here soon.
later
Since the camera is working now, I'd say just use it. As long as you have a ROM backup, it should be fine.
Regarding the errors:
- 206000a: this was fixed recently (110efb0 (https://bitbucket.org/hudson/magic-lantern/commits/110efb0)). I thought the error affected only 650D and 700D, but at a closer look, the EOS M was affected as well.
- mlv_snd depends on mlv_rec (the error message could be a little more clear).
As I feared I'm back at point zero. i.e.: camera with ML card - red LED blink and nothing else. camera without ML card - green LED blink and nothing else.
During the 2 days it worked I would occasionally get errors like it suddenly turning off or the display going dark while the camera kept working (I could still take pictures or shoot videos even if nothing showed up on the screen).
now I'm re-running the deblink to check if anything changed.
say, that loop at the end of the deblink I posted (disable power save / enable power save); isn't that strange? the errors I was getting (dark display, turning off) seemed as if the camera was mistakenly going into power save mode.
Quote from: Ernani on December 04, 2015, 06:58:51 PM
display going dark while the camera kept working
To me, this suggests a hardware issue on the display side (most likely weak electric contact). At startup, Canon code probably expects the display hardware to reply something back - if it doesn't, camera doesn't boot.
I assume the display test doesn't work either (that is, only the backlight is active).
The powersave messages are harmless - they appear every time there is a communication from the MPU to the main CPU.
I was afraid that might be the case :'(
well, if it is of interest to anyone I'll keep posting here for any further development (display replacement, unexpected fix...)
thanks a1ex and all ML developers for turning these otherwise rather lame cameras into little powerhouses!
Quote from: dfort on November 27, 2015, 05:23:43 AM
It seems that maybe it is hanging when reading the card. Have you tried other cards? You might also try this:
Remove card, remove battery, reinsert battery and start camera without card--that usually works for me. Next step is in the Canon menus reset to default settings. If that helps you should probably also delete the ML settings file on the card to go back to the ML default settings. If you're still having problems turn off the camera boot flag by running the ML installer and waiting a minute for it to turn off the boot flag. Worse case scenario reinstall the Canon 2.0.2 firmware and hope for the best.
Resetting settings worked for me, thank you!