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....Okay, so  a bit more testing and I think I've found out what's causing the problem, but not the solution.

Magic zoom that I've been rattling on about. still flickers after the umpteenth fresh install but (and this is the breakthrough) if I keep trying it for several minutes then the red bars top and bottom of the zoom box appear. Sometimes the camera has focused okay and sometimes it hasn't focused because I've been too close to the subject. I can understand the focus point being red becuase it can't focus, but not when it appears to have focused okay but............... then the red light light starts to flicker, not all the time but slowly and regularly. It only happens after magic zoom has been active for a while. It does not flicker at any other time other than for about 1 second switching the camera on or off, which is normal. And that is when the battery gets hot - in magic zoom after it's been on for a few minutes. If I don't use magic zoom I don't get a hot battery. I didn't realise this until the penny dropped tonight. Everytime I've tested the camera I've tried to get magic zoom so this is when the battery must start getting hot. If I disable magic zoom the red light stops its flickering and the camera starts behaving itself again. There is a post on the bugs page from a guy who has posted a photo of magic zoom misbehaving and he also has complained of the battery getting hot. Moral: don't use magic zoom but it's bugging me. Still at least I know what not to do now to stop getting a hot battery. Still going back to 2.2 though for now. I think it's safer and I don't want to find I get a dud battery in case there is a slow battery drain happening, although I don't think that's happening.

Hope this makes sense - am writing it in a hurry as just been told we are going to the supermarket.

I haven't noticed any increased power draw but the battery gets hot to the touch after a few minnutes but I do not have a flashing red light on the camera. Not so with 2.2 the battery remains at a constant temperature. Gone through the installation guide again but still can't see I've missed anything.

In 2.2. ExpSim displays but it doesn't constantly flicker as with 2.3

In 2.3 Magic Zoom does not always display and when it does it flickers continually when the shutter button is half pressed. I reverted to 2.2 and this does not happen. Also when testing 2.3 this afternoon I got red bars at one point with magic zoom, not green bars. I couldn't reproduce this after switching the camera off and on again and not sure I want to try and reproduce it.

Everything else seems to behave okay apart from odd things appearing on the screen periodically (which others have also reported) though I still haven't got the hang of navigating the menu quickly but that comes with use.

2.2 was pretty damn perfect though (certainly with the functions I used) so staying with it. Mind you, I came to it several months in when the bugs had been dealt with. I don't think I'm cut out to be a tester 

I hadn't downloaded 2.3 in the beta testing period. Only got it on Monday. Guess some others did the same. I liked 2.2 - wasn't in any rush to upgrade. Hoped others would find these these teething problems. In the same way I would't buy a newly released camera.

I can try to capture some rogue text

Looking at some of the other posts about malfunctions many seem to be about the 550d. Coincidence or...?

I followed the install guide to the letter A1ex. Have to agree with comments on several other posts - not finding 2.3 the best version. Did another fresh install tonight. No improvement. Still getting hot fairly quickly. No blinking red light, but still getting ExpSim blinking most of the time in live view. Listenpreis is also reporting some of the same phenomena as I am experiencing (and there are others). Lots of little niggles rather than any one big thing but serious enough for me to be concerned enough to revert to 2.2 (which worked perfectly).

Still having problems with Magic Zoom on 2.3 as well as the battery getting very hot. Also random text from various ML screens popping up randomly. Otherwise things seem to work but really only  tried photo modes since that's  what I shoot. I did try the cartoon video mode - like that a lot.

Back to 2.2 it is for me.

Hit the trash can to revert to the Canon menu, then Q and use the scroll wheel to set AWB. Not much more trouble. It took me a while to work this out too.

I'll do a bit of testing this week. Got a day off on Thursday so I will take my camera with me. Although I didn't mention this on my original post I've discovered that magic zoom is behaving very well in 2.3. It flickers constantly whether using green bars, split screen or SS zero cross. I'm not giving up yet, but will probably revert to 2.2 for a while as the features I used the most worked almost flawlessly.

I din't see this post before I posted yesterday but I have noticed the same phenomenon on my 550D with 2.3. Even when I used my camera on holiday in Europe when the local temperature was around 28 degrees I didn't notice the battery getting hot, yet last night at home where it was around 21 degrees my camera battery started escalating quickly. Not dangerously so but enough to make me want to shut down the camera after half an hour. I'm going to experiment a bit more but may go back to 2.2 as I had using it down to a fine art, whereas I'm still on the 2.3 learning curve. Once some more of the introductory niggles have been dealt with I'll try it again. Full of admiration for the developers though - there are some great new features but for me it's not quite there yet.

LOL. Where I live it's a comfortable 21 degrees 

Thanks for your reply Lupo, yes it was a fresh install. I didn't update the Canon firmware version again (I did do that with 2.2, but assuming the same version).

I love the new features and better accessibility for the old ones but I might revert to 2.2 for the moment. My battery seems to get very hot in a short time. I was alarmed to see that the CMOS temperature had gone up from 26 to 36 degrees in a very, very short time and when I took out the battery it was HOT. The Exp SIM blinks constantly in live view (no flashing red light though). That didn't happen with 2.2. I could shoot for hours without the battery getting hot.
Also whatever mode I'm ML displays the message that XXX feature is disabled in current shooting mode. It doesn't seem to matter if in live view, M, P, Av TV or whatever.

I really want to love ML 2.3 as it's so user friendly once you relocate favourite features but I think I'm going to play safe and revert to the older version for a while for the sake of my precious camera (550D).

This might be another stupid question, but I see that when usingML v2.3 ML digital ISO, ISO 50 and 51200 are unlocked. Is this for both photo and movie, and on which models? I have the 550D and guess that due to the cropped sensor the noise would be pretty bad at 51200, but there are times when it might be useful, especially if shooting monochrome. Hope it's supported on the 550D. Likewise, ISO could be a real boon. On a recent holiday the light was so intense that it would have been great to use a lower ISO than experiment with exposure compensation and miss the shot.