Olympus OM-D E-M5 Sometimes Unresponsive

[drbw]

I have had this problem on three different bodies. The first time it happened I sent the body back to Olympus and they "repaired it" when it happened again they replaced the body with a new one. I now have a back up body and on a recent trip where i was shooting with available light it happened to each of the bodies. When it happens the camera is locked in the on position. it will not turn off nor allow me to anything other than change shutter speed and f stop. I must take out the battery which is by then fairly hot- as is the camera body. If I let it cool off and reinstall the battery it then works fine until it does it again. It has also happened when I was shooting macro with a 60mm prime lens- and the camera was focus hunting and I was taking a lot of pictures.
I am using factory batteries and all Nauticam gear. I have spoken to both Olympus and Nauticam and they claim to not heard of any issues with this camera or housing.

Are there other users out there that are having this issue? Is there a resolution? There is definitely something wrong here

Dan

 

[ProfF]

Are there other users out there that are having this issue? Is there a resolution? There is definitely something wrong here

Dan

Sounds like what I was suffering, although you seem to get it more often than all above reports. Where did you dive?

AFAIK it happens only underwater. Seems like all the reports are in Nauticam housings (either OM-D or E-PL3). Might be something to do with the housing pressing on some buttons (I doubt it), head conductance of the housing, or some other weird combination of events.

 

[DSR-3]

One of my previous uw camera/housings (not E-PL) would occasionally lock up. I found it was due to a sticking button-plunger. The camera didn't like it always being pushed...

 

[drbw]

I has happened to me in Indonesia and Fiji all warm water places. I think it is due to heat build up in housing- combination of warm water and camera being in housing

 

[xcetra]

I must take out the battery which is by then fairly hot- as is the camera body. If I let it cool off and reinstall the battery it then works fine until it does it again. It has also happened when I was shooting macro with a 60mm prime lens- and the camera was focus hunting and I was taking a lot of pictures.
I am using factory batteries and all Nauticam gear.
Dan

This was exactly my situation with the same housing, lens, and focus hunting. Seems like when the problem happens people are doing a lot with the camera (focusing or shooting a lot of pictures). The last time it happened to me was near the beginning of my dive (10 mins in) focusing hunting on a subject.

Dan, what firmware are your E-M5 bodies running? Latest is v1.7, but last time I had a problem was with v1.6.

Anyone have a freeze when using firmware 1.7?

---------- Post added August 14th, 2013 at 11:17 AM ----------

I just got off the phone with Olympus technical support and they couldn't offer any solutions. The only thing they suggested was to send my camera into the service center for repair. From talking with them, they don't seem to know why it's happening and I doubt sending my camera in for repair will fix anything.

Not sure what to do next since it's hard to reproduce the problem reliably.

Probably best for everyone who is having the problem to write/call Olympus about it to get their attention.

Has anyone ever had the freeze problem without using the Nauticam housing? Ever happen topside?

Jason

---------- Post added August 14th, 2013 at 11:24 AM ----------

Thought this might be interesting from the E-M5 FAQ. From this, I would think the E-M5 should warn us if it is about to overheat. So maybe our problems aren't from overheating?

E-M5 &gt Frequently Asked Questions

"The LCD screen displays "Internal camera temperature is too high. Please wait for cooling before camera use." Then the camera shuts off. What causes this message to appear?As a safety measure, the E-M5 issues this message and shuts itself off whenever its internal temperature climbs too high. This may happen after frequent or continuous use of Live View or a shooting mode that captures many images in a short time, such as the Sequential Shooting drive mode. In these situations, the image sensor may not get a chance to cool off in between shots. The heat of the sensor raises the camera’s internal temperature. If it gets high enough, the camera must turn itself off. Once the camera has cooled for a few minutes, you will be able to resume shooting."

 

[drbw]

I not only called olympus I sent my camera into them after the first few times it froze on- they said they repaired it and sent it back- It happened again on the next dive trip- i sent it in again and they replaced the body. all the time saying they had no idea that there is any problem with these cameras. It has happened to 2 other bodies since then, Seems like I never learn! I just tried to duplicate the problem by putting the housing with camera in it- in a tub of 84 degree water letting it come to water temp. and then shooting and focusing away- I do you use back button (FN10 focus) shot a zillion pictures focusing like crazy- camera never froze - worked fine- beats me....mf firmware is 1.5 oops

 

[xcetra]

drbw,

Exactly why I'm hesitant to send my camera to Olympus.

See link below. Seems like this freezing/lockup problem happens above water without a Nauticam housing. I had doubts the problem would be from the housing.

OM-D EM-5 lockup while actively shooting - Micro Four Thirds User Forum

I'm beginning to think it has more to do with buggy Olympus software or the brand/type of memory card.

 

[DiveYuri]

Hey All, New here, but let me directly join the club of the freezing up OMD's.

Just returned from a 9day live-a-board in indonesia, and had my OMD EM-5, 60mm oly and 7-14mm pana in the Nauticam housing with me.
Dived heaps with the kit, but mostly using the 60mm, since there isn't a lot of wide angle here locally.

The using the 60mm I had NO issues; however using the 7-14mm the camera locked up several dives, 10-15min into the dive. Same experience, screen stays on, most buttons still work (except power), and you can't focus or take picture, and battery needs to be taken out to reset the camera.

Since I didn't had any internet access, could not check firmware, but seems I'm one version behind.
I took the camera out of the housing, and just played with the 7-14mm.. and yes, also out of the housing it sometimes locked up.

Couple of things that we thought it could be related to :
- Heat building up in housing. (first time for me in 27'c water with this kit, using strobe (1/64 power setting) and screen, maybe heat up camera. But if the software would give message that camera would be to hot, this will not have been the case. (no message displayed).
- Firmware, could not check at time on the boat, but seems there is no update in the firmware relating freezing up
- Firmware of the lens? Since it ONLY happens with the 7-14mm pana
- Combinations of custom settings. (like most of us, the camera has a quite specific underwater setup).

As a try, I did give the camera a full reset (from the menu) and reprogrammed all my settings.
This solved it for me. Although I didn't had many wide angle dives after the reset, the dives I did it did NOT lock up anymore.

So, my advise to you all would be
- Check firmware
- Reset camera
- Reprogram
(in that order, since I don't know if updating firmware does reset the camera settings)

I will take the wideangle setup out for some dives here (in Perth, WA) for a couple of dives over the next weeks, and will let you know if I still have the same problem. But since the water here is now 17'c... it might well not happen here.

 

[Ardy]

I worked in the IT software world for years and the Olympus response to this problem was standard with a couple of US software houses I worked for. Customers would complain about an issue,and the standard response was "We do not see this problem in the US" - I would phone some mates in the US and find that the engineers knew all about it and either could not fix it yet, or it was slated for the next release.

This is just marketing BS overriding the engineers to try and buy time.

 

[NautilusCairns]

Hey All, New here, but let me directly join the club of the freezing up OMD's.

Just returned from a 9day live-a-board in indonesia, and had my OMD EM-5, 60mm oly and 7-14mm pana in the Nauticam housing with me.
Dived heaps with the kit, but mostly using the 60mm, since there isn't a lot of wide angle here locally.

The using the 60mm I had NO issues; however using the 7-14mm the camera locked up several dives, 10-15min into the dive. Same experience, screen stays on, most buttons still work (except power), and you can't focus or take picture, and battery needs to be taken out to reset the camera.

Since I didn't had any internet access, could not check firmware, but seems I'm one version behind.
I took the camera out of the housing, and just played with the 7-14mm.. and yes, also out of the housing it sometimes locked up.

Couple of things that we thought it could be related to :
- Heat building up in housing. (first time for me in 27'c water with this kit, using strobe (1/64 power setting) and screen, maybe heat up camera. But if the software would give message that camera would be to hot, this will not have been the case. (no message displayed).
- Firmware, could not check at time on the boat, but seems there is no update in the firmware relating freezing up
- Firmware of the lens? Since it ONLY happens with the 7-14mm pana
- Combinations of custom settings. (like most of us, the camera has a quite specific underwater setup).

As a try, I did give the camera a full reset (from the menu) and reprogrammed all my settings.
This solved it for me. Although I didn't had many wide angle dives after the reset, the dives I did it did NOT lock up anymore.

So, my advise to you all would be
- Check firmware
- Reset camera
- Reprogram
(in that order, since I don't know if updating firmware does reset the camera settings)

I will take the wideangle setup out for some dives here (in Perth, WA) for a couple of dives over the next weeks, and will let you know if I still have the same problem. But since the water here is now 17'c... it might well not happen here.

17 degrees? What a Spartan!! 20 degrees is ground zero for me! Time to do a bit of bush walking.