Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Boot hangs and batteries

N

Nick Gardner

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 21, 2007
Messages
3,620
Reaction score
10
Points
38
Location
Baltimore
Hi,

I have a theory as to why some people have boot hangs and problems and some don't.

I recently sent one of my Reds over to a local rental house on a subrental. I am in 15mm land, and AB batts, so all they wanted was my body. I got a call a few hours later saying that they were having terrable boot hang issues, and that it if it did boot, it froze, or shutdown. Prior to this I had never had a single boot problem. Ever. Not one. So I asked what else was plugged into the camera, because that was the only thing that had changed. They said just the EVF and battery. I said, change out the battery plate for a different one. The problem promptly went away.

I was recently on a job with someone elses Red, and they were having battery plate issues (Red), and they had a bunch of boot hangs.

My theory is that many of the boot hangs are related to batteries/battery plates. I don't know how the protocol works when the batts talk to the Red, but if it's a data exchange, maybe there is a bug or a conflict that is making the camera grumpy.

I think many Red owners don't have multiple battery plates, so they probably don't exchange it when trouble shooting.

I would be interested to hear from folks like Leo who uses AB batts as I do, about how stable their cameras are.

Cheers,

Nick
 
i suppose it'd be pertinent to ask also if anyone has experienced a boot hang whilst working with the camera on AC power....
 
I have the power adapter, battery belt, and cradle. All get used. The battery belt is definately guilty. Had lots of problems with the cradle, which I believe has a loose connection somewhere

I'll log boot hangs and power sources used in future.
 
I just wrapped a two-day commercial job. I have previously had perhaps two boot hangs in the past 14 months of owning a camera. Yesterday and today I had six.
A/B batteries (Dionic 160's)
LCD only (did not use the EVF on this one)
I did have an SB-3 timecode box plugged in almost all the time.
I was using my S4's... maybe the "i" interface?
It seemed that the boot hangs happened with a changeover from battery to AC power (if we were staying put in a certain camera position for a while, I'd have my AC swap to the PS) or on the return trip to a battery.
A second boot would always work, and we did not unplug or change anything before the reboot.
Strange that I would go so long without any trouble.
Annoying but not awful...
Cheers,
Harry
 
Ok, so it's not just a red batt thing, but there does seem to be some commonality with power and boot hangs.......
 
Boot hang likely root cause

Boot hang likely root cause

arrinick said:
Ok, so it's not just a red batt thing, but there does seem to be some commonality with power and boot hangs.......
Click to expand...

One obvious cause of a boot up hang is if the power source is interrupted for any reason. So dynamically switching power or a defective battery / battery plate mechanical interface would both be very likely root causes of that.
 
Had a boot hang today as well as a random shutdown. RB17, EVF, LCD, HDMI, DRIVE, Wall power through a UPS (power filter/battbackup)

I have two battery plates, I'll give them a go but I don't think this is it. It seems related to the preview side of things LCD and EVF plugged in at the same time. Pulling them and rebooting works every time.
 
Just thinking out loud - two questions:

1. Does anyone with a low serial number Red get boot hangs (e.g. serial numbers 0 to 300)?

2. Does anyone who used to get booting hangs before they had the battery plate pin upgrade (done when the audio board gets upgraded) still suffer from booting hangs after the upgrade? Have you noticed any improvement at all?
 
Just to confirm something, when people say boot hangs, is this when the camera hangs when booting up or is it when the camera is on and suddenly hangs and goes to booting on the rear LCD?

The battery plates might have something to do with it as ours were all replaced in the upgrade. One thing I've noticed though is that the camera doesn't report faults as it use too. Before the upgrade and latest build it use to have the big red circle and white x appear. This is no longer there. It's almost like it crashes the camera rather than reporting the error now.

Paul
 
Boot Hang likely root cause

Boot Hang likely root cause

when people say boot hang, is this when the camera hangs when booting up or is it when the camera is on and suddenly hangs and goes to booting?
Click to expand...

This is a very good question Paul.


BTW - we believe we have found the root cause of the Blue Screen phenomenon.

Squishing that bug right now.
 
PaulClements said:
Just to confirm something, when people say boot hangs, is this when the camera hangs when booting up or is it when the camera is on and suddenly hangs and goes to booting on the rear LCD?

Paul
Click to expand...

I was assuming "boot hangs" refers to the common problem of the camera hanging on boot up (the status screen says "Booting..."). My theory is that the pin upgrade solves or greatly reduces this problem so it'd be good to get feedback on this thread from people who have had the upgrade.
 
A friend of mine was having problems on a feature he was shooting where the camera was shutting down during a take. It was happening on several different bodies and went on for about two weeks. To make a long story short the problem was traced to one battery that had issues but not until the camera had been running for a while.
If anyone is having problems with the camera powering off during a take, I'd advise them to number their batteries and take note of which one is on the camera when it decides to power off.

Shane.
 
I'm talking about a hang at startup.
When I use the term "boot hang", I mean that I push the power button ON and the rear screen says "booting..." but that's all that happens. If I shut down and restart the camera the rear screen will say "booting..." and then will begin listing the build numbers, PIN numbers, etc., and then the EVF (and/or LCD) will show an image with the Red logo over it and then 80-something seconds later the camera will be ready to shoot.
I've NEVER had what I would call a "spontaneous shutdown", or a "freeze", which I think is what Paul is describing.
I also think that when people are using the term "boot hang" here on this forum they are talking about a hang at startup, like I'm describing.
Cheers,
Harry
 
Boot Hang

Boot Hang

When I use the term "boot hang", I mean that I push the power button ON and the rear screen says "booting..." but that's all that happens. If I shut down and restart the camera the rear screen will say "booting..." and then will begin listing the build numbers, PIN numbers, etc., and then the EVF (and/or LCD) will show an image with the Red logo over it and then 80-something seconds later the camera will be ready to shoot.

I've NEVER had what I would call a "spontaneous shutdown", or a "freeze", which I think is what Paul is describing.

I also think that when people are using the term "boot hang" here on this forum they are talking about a hang at startup, like I'm describing.
Click to expand...

Thanks Harry, that's our description too so we are in sync.

And that's the specific bug that we are making good progress in squishing.
 
I'm getting boot hangs frequently, working off A/C power, so I don't think it's just the battery clips. I'm on build 18, working from 220v a/c power in Europe. By boot hangs I mean the screen gets no further than reading "booting..." and I eventually have to hit the power button again after I hear the fan rev up and dow a few times and it becomes obvious it's having trouble. Hopefully RED will be able to debug this sometime. My camera has not had the audio upgraded yet.

Cheers,

Paul
RED #2495
 
Ah the boot hangs.

Whenever mine hangs (and that would be 20-25% of boots) I make sure to cover the lens so no light hits the sensor and it nearly always does the trick.

After reading this thread I think i might be way off track though!

It happens on A/C as well as battery so I never thought it was a power supply issue. Could be wrong (not the first time!!)

The mystery continues!

Cam
 
No problem, Stuart...
It is funny that I went so long with no trouble. I've been using Build 17 since it became a release build, so there's been no change in firmware for me recently either. But as I said, this week brought six boot hangs in two days.
And I really do nothing more than simply restart. I don't have to pull the EVF or LCD cables, cover the lens, shake a chicken bone over the camera, or anything else. A simple restart fixes it.
But looking forward to the bug squishing nevertheless.
Cheers,
Harry
 
The weird thing is that if you don't have the EVF and LCD cables plugged in every time you boot your camera (whether it's powered by mains or battery) then you won't ever get a boot hang - is this everyone else's experience or has anyone still been getting hanging boots when they remember to power up without the EVF & LCD cables plugged in? If this is correct then I'd assume it is something power related because having the LCD & EVF plugged in will draw more power (which may lead to a boot hang) while having them unplugged will draw less power on boot up (and theoretically never cause a boot hang?).

For me the most annoying thing about the boot hangs is when you power up and go off to do something else (especially in very busy, rushed situations) - after a minute or so of presumed booting time you return to the camera only to find no picture and the "booting..." message on the status screen. You then have to reboot which takes another minute, so now it's taken over two minutes before you can record anything (if you need to turn over in a rush this can make you look really bad!). It's at times like this that the Red camera makes me want to chew my fist off in frustration.

Now I'm thinking if you don't remember to unplug the EVF & LCD every time you change battery or boot up then you at least need to wait the 15 or 20 seconds or so before the build information comes up on the status screen (you should be good to go at this stage, so you can then go off and do something else urgent rather than loitering around like a lemon for another minute or so). Hanging around for this 15 or 20 seconds or so before the build info comes up is just lost time, which I hate. The boot time is bad enough but the absolute killer is that you can't rely on the camera to truly start up properly without hanging around waiting to see if it's ok (I'm not sure of any other camera where this is the situation): :hissyfit:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top