Problem installing magic lantern

[John Gerard]

Hi,
I am trying to install magic Lantern the August 22 version on my 60d. I already have canon firmware 1.1.0. I am using the Sandisk Ultra SDHC card to install the software. I cleared all user settings back to default. I low level formatted the card. I unzipped the files to the SD card. I set the camera on Bulb Setting. I pressed the update firmware setting on the camera. The camera displayed loading firmware for a second and then the view screen went blank and the camera card red light is blinking. That's it. How long should the update take? What else could I be doing wrong? I have to remove the battery to access the camera again.

Thanks,

John Gerard

[Jordan Hooper]

If things don't seem to be working as expected you must pop out your battery immediately to prevent any possible damage to the camera. The developer stresses this point repetitively.

You probably missed the separate step of making your SDHC card "bootable" because you didn't mention anything about it.

John, I've noticed you asking a number of questions about ML. I strongly suggest you read and understand the entire manual before using this software. I know there's a lot there but all the questions you've asked are answered either in the manual, on the developers website or the wiki. You also had a feature suggestion and the developer has a preferred place for those as well.

ML is not really ready for public consumption just yet. It requires some precise steps to get it working and it's not without risk. Be careful.

[John Gerard]

Ok, my camera works fine so I don't think I heart anything. It sounded like the august release would install every thing and perform the making of the boot disk. At least from what the instructions stated. At least this is how I interrupted them. I searched and searched for information on how long the firmware update process should take. I could not find anything. I think this information would be much helpful. I even checked the Ml web site and YouTube videos.
I did remove the battery after only a minute or two. With firmware updates you don't want to remove power or that will crash the system and you are dead in the water. Having a video that shows the exact process using the latest software version showing the part of the process from installing and showing what the camera shows until it show the green conformation screen, or what ever it is call, for the 60d would really help. There are a few great videos installing the ML firmware on other canon models. But never talking about how long the process should take.
I have install firmware on my Canon 10d and other devices. IE: printers, Blu-ray players and HDTVs.
I think I will hold off on installing the ML software for now.

John Gerard

[Christian Brown]

I am having trouble installing Magic Lantern on my 60D.

I format a card in the camera.
Put the latest firmware on the card.
Update the firmware in the camera.
Format the card.
Add the Magic Lanterns files and folders to the root directory of the card.
Run the firmware update on the 60D.

...60D screen goes black and the little red light blinks slowly. What am I missing?

I've installed Magic Lantern on three T2is no problem.

[John Estcourt]

Hi Christian, you said you put the latest canon firmware on the card, but I think you need to downgrade your firmware to 1.0.1 which you can find on the magic lantern web site.
I don't think magic lantern will install with the latest firmwares..
Hope this is of some help john

[Stelios Christofides]

I personally will not mess with the 60D by installing magic lantern. Your videos won't be better by this software. I personally will not risk a 1000 Euro camera.

stelios

[Brett Sherman]

I disagree with this assesment. Magic Lantern provides valuable feedback that can improve your shooting. Having audio meters, headphone monitoring, focus distance, white balance info are all exceedingly helpful to improving your footage. Secondly it has features which allow you to tweak settings much faster than the standard way. There are key shortcuts for ISO (not to mention it gives you more ISO steps), white balance Kelvin, and 3X zoom (on the T3i). With these I'm able to make adjustments much faster. Really there is no downside to Magic Lantern besides the initial prep. Automatic restart after 12 min cutoff is a life-saver too. Yes, on a very rare occasion it crashes. But this is really not a problem

[John Estcourt]

I agree with Brett, I would be interested to know who, if anybody has damaged their camera installing this firmware, and I mean damaged as in having to send it back to Canon for repair, rather than just pull the battery.
So far, zero crashes and I cannot imagine using the camera without it any more.
The best part of magic lantern is the big red cross in the screen that tells me I'm NOT recording ;-), even I cannot miss that.

[John Gerard]

Hi all,
So far I gave up trying to install Magic Lantern. I just did not want to damage my camera. But I would love to have the features that Magic Lantern provides. One mainly is the ability to record more than 20 minutes at a time. Among a few others. If magic Lantern ever gets to the point where it will not damage my camera I will try it again. If my 60d was a backup camera that I could afford to lose then that would be a different story. The one time I tried to install the software it did not would but at least there was no damage to my camera so that good.

John Gerard

John Gerard

[Seth Bloombaum]

Did you do a canon firmware update before ML?

My ML install didn't work on a new 60D. The cam had the current firmware. I downloaded the same firmware from canon, installed it, then my ML install worked.

Although there are some alarmists out there (you know who you are), when I installed a couple months ago I covered all the forums for ML, at wikia and vimeo. No one had reported damage to a camera, other than a developer who was experimenting on Canon's firmware & borked the cam. This was not an ML install, it was firmware experimentation.

So, to all, if you're aware of a camera broken by an ML install, let's hear about it. If you don't know of any broken cameras, please stop spreading rumors... (deleted)

For me, Magic Lantern has been well worth it. And yes, I installed it on a 60D two days after I bought the camera, new at retail.

Note that like the developers, I too am not responsible for any damage to your camera. Do your research at the ML wikia and vimeo forum sites, make your own decision.

[Jordan Hooper]

Seth,

I also have ML installed on my 60D. My camera has not been damaged and I don't know of anyone who has damaged theirs.

Not to be an alarmist, but the very first thing you see on the developer's installation page is a warning surrounded by asterisks in capitals is, "THIS IS DANGEROUS AND MIGHT DAMAGE YOUR CAMERA. IF IT BREAKS, YOU GET TO KEEP BOTH PIECES."
Unified/Install - Magic Lantern Firmware Wiki
Stated further down the page reads,
"• If you encounter a "locked up" camera, quickly remove the battery.
• When in doubt, remove the battery and reboot.
• And, remember that this software can damage or destroy your camera."

If the developer is going to that length to alert us about potential danger why should we not heed his warning? Just because neither you nor I know of anyone who has broken their camera hardly means that it can't happen, nor does one deserve the accusation of "spreading rumors that have no basis in truth!"

So don't get all bold-and-italicize-texted on us. :) lol

[Donald McPherson]

Jordan, please can you tell everybody which firmware version you have on your 60d so others know that ML works with it. I myself have the 550d/T2i/KissX4. with ML.

[Seth Bloombaum]

Originally Posted by Jordan Hooper

...but the very first thing you see on the developer's installation page is a warning surrounded by asterisks in capitals is, "THIS IS DANGEROUS AND MIGHT DAMAGE YOUR CAMERA. IF IT BREAKS, YOU GET TO KEEP BOTH PIECES."...

If the developer is going to that length to alert us about potential danger why should we not heed his warning? Just because neither you nor I know of anyone who has broken their camera hardly means that it can't happen, nor does one deserve the accusation of "spreading rumors that have no basis in truth!"

So don't get all bold-and-italicize-texted on us. :) lol

Hah! That's me, mr. bold and italicize! I'm on a roll - if you're a fan of b&i, see this morning's post in the audio forum, in which I attempt to skewer another internet myth.

OK, in all seriousness, I appreciate what Jordan wrote. I saw the same warnings at the ML Wikia site and the official ML forum. And they gave me pause. When I looked deeper into it, I found that exactly one camera had been borked in ML development. And that the volunteer developers on this project took that seriously, and put up a strong disclaimer as Jordan quoted above.

As I understand it, they didn't want anyone coming back and saying "you broke my camera and Canon won't honor the warranty..."

So, yes, I too am not responsible, use Magic Lantern at your own risk.

But, I stand on my statements above - I researched it, and my decision was that there was way more reward than risk. But, your values may be different, and you should balance reward and risk for yourself. There's the money. There's what ML does. There's the risk. Balance them for yourself. Nobody can do this for you.

However! (had to get one in...) The warning that Jordan quoted above seems to have developed it's own life as an internet meme, and now the conventional wisdom is becoming that ML installation is dangerously high risk.

So... have you ever heard of a camera broken by installation of Magic Lantern? There's a large community of ML users on this very forum... has anyone ever heard of a specific instance in which a camera was broken by ML installation?

[Murray Christian]

As well as the warning it's also the slightly scary prospect of adjusting firmware. That's traditionally been a bit risky in computing in general (although it's pretty good these days).
To that it's worth noting that ML doesn't seem to adjust the firmware very much at all, in the sense of BIOS updates and the like. All it does, from what I gather, is flip an internal toggle that tells the camera to load from the card (which then has ML installed on it).
You do need a Magic Lantern installed card to make it go and/or restore it to normal after that. But you don't really alter anything in a major way internally. That's much safer to my mind than updating the official Canon firmware!

I can imagine circumstances where card-camera communications are interrupted when its loading or something and thing get messed up. Probably just de-powering it should fix most of them.
Of course, it's not entirely risk free and no one could say so. But folks took their camera out in the last few days didn't they? How did you know you weren't going to drop it?

[Jordan Hooper]

Originally Posted by Donald McPherson

Jordan, please can you tell everybody which firmware version you have on your 60d so others know that ML works with it. I myself have the 550d/T2i/KissX4. with ML.

Donald,

Unified - Magic Lantern Firmware Wiki
Currently I'm using Unified ML 2.2 (aka 2011Dec22 Xmas Edition) on my 60D running firmware 1.1.0.


As of July 23 (or shortly thereafter) I hope to be using ML 2.3 on my 60D with fw 1.1.1, if all goes as planned.
MagicLantern.fm - ML 2.3 RC2 testing - ready for pro use?

My advice would be to follow the instructions on the Wiki installation page. There is a list about halfway down the page that lists the firmware you should be using for each camera model, as well as detailed installation instructions.
Unified/Install - Magic Lantern Firmware Wiki

Make yourself an installation checklist and tick it off as you go to help stay on track and all should be well (like Seth says) ::cough:: lol