Mirror assembly failure on EOS 40D?

<p>My 2 year old 40D recently came down with an odd failure.<br>

Whilst using if, the viewfinder went black and no images were recorded. I had error 99 messages top and back. When I took out the battery or CF card or changed on/off she shutter seemed to actuate. same thing with adding or removing any lens. It looked as though the mirror was up all the time and snapped down into place during what I thougt were the actuations.<br>

I sent the camera off to Canon for repair and it's come back with a new mirror assembley.<br>

Has anyone encountered this before? Previously, the only mirror problemn I had encountered was the 5D mirror falling off.</p>

<p>It's not a common problem as far as I know. The 5D mirror issue is :-(</p>

<p>With film we had to budget our shutter cycles to manage the cost of film and developing. It took decades for most shooters to hit 100,000 shutter cycles. I probably averaged 50-75 rolls a year. So, 10 years ago it was extremely rare to read of mirror or shutter related failures. Now we shoot with abandon and it's common to read of mirror and shutter failures, even in cameras 1 or 2 years old. And I suspect the shutter in the 40D is better than that in similar niche film models--Elan 7 and EOS 5--but gets a real pounding by modern shooters.</p>