EOS 1d ERROR 99!

[michael_oxford]

Has anyone else ever had a problem with the EOS 1d (Mk I) locking up in an "Error 99" after attempting to dump a large burst of images to

the card? Generally what happens is that I fire off a rapid sequence, pause for a second of two, and then I fire another long burst.

Sometimes the camera will then lock up - the buffer will read "0," the card light will be on. When I do try and do something, ie, fire shutter, I

either get nothing, or the good old "Err 99." This is VERY aggravating in the middle of a volleyball tournament...

 

I've found that the problem seems to only happen with Lexar Professional 2gb cards, although it has happened to me once or twice with

Sandisk Extreme III cards. I suspect the problem with the Sandisk is that I was using a 4gb card in a camera whose firmware will only take

up to 2GB; I formatted the card in camera, so i suppose that it would utilize the fully available 2 (of 4) gb. I'm told Lexar uses a different

architecture- could this be a problem?

 

Any words of wisdom? I suspect its the card, but I'm not sure.

[peterlyons]

Try wiping clean the contacts between your camera body and lens. Use some fluid if you want but it's probably not

necessary. I'll bet that'll do it.

[scott_ferris]

My vote is with Peters suggestion, unbelievable though it may sound.

 

I have a 1D and did used to get the error 99 on occasion, it locked the camera up completely and I had to remove the battery after switching it off to get it to fire up again, at the time there were heaps of internet rumours of faulty 70-200 f2.8 IS's, kinda like the AF "problem" on mk111's! Turned out to be the body to lens contacts, funny thing was it only did it with the 70-200, but since I gave the connectors a very full clean, 3 years ago, I haven't had any problems.

 

Hope this helps, Scott.

[michael_oxford]

Hmm .. we'll i've gotten it to Err 99 WITHOUT an EF lens mounted... It's happened while mounted on my telescope, and I

think i've gotten it to happen while just messing around with the body. I don't know how the contacts would play into that

situation ? (not saying it's not worth a shot to clean them)

[john_macpherson]

I've had Err 99 in a 1DMk2n numerous times, and it was eventually traced to a defective shutter release mechanism - so its not necessarily the lens/body contacts as often supposed.

[btmuir]

Is the Lexar an older 2 gig card?

Lexar had a well documented problem w/ 2 gig cards in Canons losing images if you chimped while the card was still clearing

the buffer. They even had a spot on their site where you could check the number on the card to see if it was a "problem" unit

and they would replace them.

 

I realize this isn't the same exact problem but...

[mark soares]

Hi Michael,

 

There are many things that can cause err99. Err99 is just a general communications error. I work in a repair facility and see this every day. Top causes for error 99 are as follows:

 

1-Bad Shutter, 2-Bad Aperture control assembly in the camera, 3-Bad aperture assembly in the lens, 4-Bent pins in CF card slot, 5-Bad Battery (third party usually), 6-Corrosion 7-Lens Contacts.

 

From your description i'm inclined to say a bad shutter, although a bad battery could easily do this because when the battery can't provide the camera enough power to fire the shutter, the shutter fails and therefore err99 is displayed.

 

The worst scenario is the corrosion one, which could make the camera unrepaireable. I would lift up the mirror and look at the shutter to see if you see any scratch marks on the shutter blades, or if any of them are dangling out of position - this is a sign of shutter failure.

[kin_lau]

I stick with just 2gig CF's in my 1D classic, RAW files only, Sandisk Extreme III's and "RocketFish" 266x's. I fill the buffer quite often, but I've not had the Err99's. Highspeed 2gig CF's are really cheap now, so why not pickup a non-Lexar one and test it out.

[sbrauchli]

Thanks Mark.

 

I just purchased a 1D Mark III a month ago and took it to Namibia for three weeks. In Namibia there is a lot of dust and for that reason I only changed lenses very rarely and just kept shooting with different bodies. I was doing some action shots of a dancer jumping off a dune and really used the 10 fps capability of the camera. After quite a few of these sequences without any problem, the camrea locked up and gave me the Error 99 message. I turned it off took out the battery and reinstalle dit but it still kept doing it. I switched to another lens and turned IS off to see if it was due to the lens. I also tried a different CF. Some sequences worked fine after that, but then again it would lock up consistently.

 

I have not used it this extensively since that shoot, and I will definitely clean the contacts (due to the dust), but its a brand new camera and should not be giving me this error.

 

You mentioned: "1-Bad Shutter, 2-Bad Aperture control assembly in the camera, 3-Bad aperture assembly in the lens, 4-Bent pins in CF card slot, 5-Bad Battery (third party usually), 6-Corrosion 7-Lens Contacts."

 

I doubt its corrosion or battery, so I am wondering if there is anything else I should check or just send it in to Canon? I also noticed that I do now have some dust specks on my sensor. I have found that brand new Canon bodies even deliver with some dust on them, but this dust is new and must have entered in Namibia. Is it safe to have Canon do a sensor cleaning?

[mark soares]

Hi Stephan,

 

Sorry for the delay in replying i had completely forgotten about this post. It's perfectly fine to have Canon clean the sensor althout it is not covered under warranty since dust can land on it at any time. I'm sure they'll do it as part of the repair, should they find something wrong with the camera. If the camera is still giving you err99 after all the testing there is only one answer - bad shutter. I know it's a new camera but shutters can die at any time. They're rated at 150,000 or so but bear in mind that is the average. I've seen them fail at 1000 and seen some last over 250,000 - there is no way to guess when they will defenitely fail. I would send it in while it is still under warranty so you could get it taken care of.

 

Best Regards,

 

Mark

[sbrauchli]

Thanks Mark - unfortunately my place was broken into and they stole my 1D MIII along with 4 lenses and a 40D. My insurance should cover it and I hope that my next 1D will not have the same issue.

[sbrauchli]

<p>I really think there is a problem with the 1D M III. I bought another one since my previous one got stolen and I upgradede to the latest firmware 1.2.3. I have shot less than 1000 pictures and last weekend I got the Error 99 and could not get the camera to take pictures anymore.. very disappointed in Canon. None of my 10D, 20D, 40D, 50D and 5D I've had ever had any problems.. then you buy a "professional" model camera and it is not reliable at all... I could believe its an exception if it happens once in a while - but 2 brand new cameras that were bought well after the model just came out showed this behavior - so IMHo there is an intrinsic issue with the 1D MIII - I would not recommend it.</p>

[joseph_b]

<p>I have had an EOS 1000D for 2 weeks and am getting the error 99. To bypass the error and make the camera work I open and close the battery slot while leaving the Camera on and Battery in. This seems to re-set the Camera and it works fine until it Auto shuts off. I then repeat the process and all works. As an underwater Photographer this is an ISSUE! Any ideas on how to get rid of the problem permanently?</p>

[sbrauchli]

<p>I received my 1D MIII back from repair and they switched out the shutter. The camera now fires consistently. However, when I shoot a few pics I can only review the most recent ones the rest appear with a "?" and the message cannot read image. As soon as I shoot more, the ones that were previously readable become unreadable. When I downloaded the images from my card to my PC, many of them show with 0 KB, though on the card they have the full size. When I try to open them from the card I get a wrong format error.<br>

I always format my card before use, so I doubt the card is to blame. I am pissed that the people who switched out the shutter did not test the camera afterwards to see that everything works fine. Now I don't know how to recover some of my pictures. I am seriously thinking of selling the 1D...</p>