It may be useful to detail everything that would create data or use power. ie, what was in auto, zoom control manual or power, OIS or Active OIS, amount of display data, full , partial or none, viewfinder, LCD or both, on a tripod or hand held, XLR mic( with phantom power) or internal, LANC control or camera controls, GPS, controls active ie peaking, zebra, markers, macro etc

Last evening shot a theatre production 1080i to both SD card and FMU with no problems, picture is beautiful. All manual control( gain, shutter at 60, iris), PP3, OIS off, Manfrotto LANC( stop, start, standby and zoom), XLR mic with phantom power LPCM, peaking(red), zebra(100%), full display. LCD display, viewfinder off. 32G Patriot Class 10 and the FMU, battery was old 970 fully charged and after almost 2 hours still showed 222min left.
Files from the FMU of a few minutes short of 2 hours transferred to PC using the Content Manager Utility in 10 mins played in Vegas Pro 9 native and in Edius slowly( can't wait for 5.5 in a few weeks)
Ron Evans

Fascinating...in not the best way, but still important.

I have been letting my two NX5U's run for the last few hours, one with the FMU128 attached, the other without...here's the story:

Notes:
~all other settings of "interest" are typical as I can't see how they relate to this problem.
~Recording was HD-HD (Cam-1), HD (Cam-2)
~Everything was formatted in the camera (the ""standard"" format)
~Cam-1 in this use was the same as yesterday, as is the FMU128. The cards are all different for both cameras.

Cam-1
SlotA - SDHC Verbatim 16G Class-6
SlotB - SDHC Transcend 16G Class-6
FMU128 recording in tandem


Cam-2
SlotA - SDHC Transcend 16G Class-6
SlotB - SDHC Verbatim 16G Class-6
FMU128 - turned off

After just over an hour, and I stopped/started a handful of times, at the same times on both cameras, guess what happened?

Cam-1 crashed with the Buffer Issue. Lost control and the only way to resolve was for it to "fix" the cards - scanned both - then the FMU128 (that lost power again), then it worked; same as yesterday.
Cam-2 was still recording

Deductive reasoning would rule-out the SDHC issues in the sense that I used a different card this time than yesterday and reversed them in each camera as well. The footage, after the camera 'fixed' and did it's thing seemed okay when reviewing it. The total time for it to 'fix' was about 5 minutes this time, compared to 3 yesterday. Not a clue as to why the different time, perhaps the amount on the cards.

The obvious is becoming, well, more clear.

I'm glad I kept a Z7U as I'm thinking that'll becoming my main camera once again, or perhaps just not use the FMU128 units.

I certainly hope Sony responds to this ASAP as this is certainly cause for great concern.

Marshall,

I may try mess around tonight and see if I can get the error to re-occur, I did a fair amount of recording on sunday without the error popping up.

Did it happen to the same FMU unit?

Have you tried to the media dump operation on that FMU.

I do think this is a serious problem, and I am not trying to say the you did something to make it happen, just trying to help problem solve a little.

Ryan

Do the people who have had problems have two SD cards installed or one? I know the point is to have two for continuous recording but has anyone had the problem with just one card installed?

Ron Evans

Mine was with the single card, and it only had about 4-5 gb of video on it.

Hi All

I've only had the problem when recording in tandem to an SD card and the FMU128. To an SD card alone, no problem. Also, when using the FMU128 with a Sony MemoryStick Pro HG Duo HX, although I've not used that very often so it may just be chance that it's not crashed with the MemoryStick.

My earlier theory that it might be triggered by an encounter a corruption in the FMU or memory card during a write operation has still not been addressed.

Marshall, when your cam 1 crashed, did it go into a complete freeze (not even responding to power off switch) or not? And did it manage to recover the clip that was interrupted by the crash on restart?

Cheers

Adam

@ADAM:

>>>The camera completely froze (crashed) whereby the only thing I could do to get the camera to do anything was to remove the battery. No buttons worked, nor did the power button switch. I did notice that the power to the FMU128 was immediately turned off and remained off until the camera restored the data (or whatever it does) to that specific unit; only then would the camera turn back on (by itself) and start working again. This is why it seriously seems to be related to this unit in parallel with the SDHC recordation as well. The clip was recovered.

more notes:

I've experienced the buffer overflow and deep crash under the following circumstances:

1) With an unmodified NX5U shooting 1080/30p FX and with a WorldCam updated NX5U shooting 1080/25p FX.

2) Definitely in manual focus mode, can't remember if it ever happened in AF mode.

3) With and without a second (non-Sony) mic attached in addition to the kit mic. Kit mic I generally have on auto level, second mic (TinyMike with 48v to 3.5v converter plug, 48v phantom power ON) usually on manual level.

4) With SteadyShot ON and GPS ON.

5) With front rec light OFF.

4) PCM audio ON.

5) Zebras ON at 100.

6) Peaking ON (focus aid)

7) Both while shooting via flip out LCD only and rear viewfinder only.

8) On cards that have previously been in camera during unplanned clip interruption/shutdown.

Cheers

Adam

Had cards only been in the camera for clip delete and format or had clips been deleted on the PC?
Ron Evans

I was taping an event a couple of days ago and had the following take place:

After approximately 35 minutes recording was stopped and the camera was turned off. About 7 minutes later camera was turned on and the record button pushed. An error message immediately appeared indicating that data was being recovered. I tried turning the camera off and on - no response. Since it was imperative that I begin taping I removed and reattached the battery. (Battery had plenty of power - about 180 minutes left). I was finally able to get to a screen that allowed me to abort the recovery of data, but I had to make several selections on the touch screen acknowledging that the data would be lost forever. Up until this point there was no indication whether it was SD memory or the FMU that was causing the data recovery message. Finally (about two minutes) got to the main camera screen and it indicated that media in slot A was corrupt/unuseable, but the FMU looked good so I began recording to it alone. I did not try to select media in slot B and record to it - was just grateful FMU appeared to be working.

Taping complete I turned off camera, still getting an indication that media in slot A was corrupt/unuseable. A few seconds later when I turned the camera back on everything was fine - including media in slot A. The first 35 minute taping was intact on A, but obviously the second part was not there. FMU recorded everything, but I did miss about 45 seconds while trying to eliminate the lockup. Video has been transferred to my edit system and I have not done anything to the cards yet - I may examine them attached directly to a computer later.

Something to note is that even after I was able to get rid of the error messages, the camera did not "relay" to the media in slot B - it just kept giving me an indication that media in slot A was corrupt. Not sure whether it is meant to relay or not under these circumstances (probably not), but at least it did allow me to record to the FMU.

I'm not sure whether or not there is actually a corrupt sector on the card - it appears fine now. Cards are Panasonic Class 10 16 GB which have only been used in this camera and were formatted by the camera when first installed. They have not been subjected to inadvertant power loss. Twice in the previous week (including immediately prior to this taping) I had recorded for several hours until the SD cards were full in order to ensure there were no corrupt sectors on either card, then deleted (not reformatted) all video on the cards/FMU. I assume if there was a corrupt sector I would not have been able to record until the cards were both full.

I have another taping in a couple of days and don't want to go through this again. Thinking of removing either SDHC or FMU and recording to one type of media, or maybe recording 1080/60 to the FMU and 480/60 to the SD. Maybe I'll just go and buy a couple of Memory Sticks. Open to suggestions.

Panasonic SDHC Class 10 16GB
1080/60i to both SD and FMU
GPS - On
NP-F770 battery
Manual mode
Auto focus - On
Whitebalance - Preset A
Manual Iris
Shutter - 60
Gain - 6db
Audio Channel 1 - Shotgun with 48v
Audio Channel 2 - Wireless
Viewfinder - Off / LCD - On
Tripod Mounted

Brian

Did you switch on and immediately push record button so the red light on the media might have been on while you pushed record. It takes a few seconds for the camera to examine the media and give a green light to attached media.
Ron Evans

I'm certain that I didn't press record button too quickly on powerup - I was trying to be pretty slow and deliberate with my actions because of the reported problems. To be honest I am not sure if I even pressed the record button - the error may have come immediately on power application (that was my initial recollection of the event - and is what I wrote down when I first had a chance). All I know is that once the data recovery message appeared I had fingers flying trying to clear the error and start recording again.

When I turned the power off (after the first 35 minutes) I waited a good 15 - 20 seconds after all activity ended.

Brian