Cards stop working

[Christoffer Glans]

I've been a dealer for Angelbird for years and have used just two Angelbird cfExpress cards in my R5 and an off brand reader since November 2020 with over 100 cycles without a single glitch. Also lots of experience with Angelbird cFast and SSDs in Blackmagic Ursa Mini and Ursa Broadcast cameras and Hyperdeck 12g with no issues either.

Obviously anecdotal evidence isn't the best but we know RED likes to do firmware things to make their cards proprietary and potentially "more reliable" or better able to handle high write speeds.

That would lead me to believe that it is probably something like firmware "steroids" that was supposed to make them capable of higher write speeds by closer integration with RED firmware - and maybe just pushed it too far. Also it is my understand that the "bits" in solid state storage aren't totally "solid" and degrade over time. I don't know if that is normally handled with Error Correction, or moving weak bits to spare bits, or if there is a way of completely refreshing all of the bits - or if it is just what happens to solid state media.

It's probably not that common for these cards to sit for months without use - so it may not have affected that many users. (yet). But if lack of consistent use is a problem that should be clearly stated.

I appreciate everything that Phil does on Reduser but I don't think it should be him that has to respond to all of these issues (sensor split and others).

I've wondered why there has been so little RED employee interaction here - but had a thought on that today. Possibly the fact that the ownership of RED camera company and REDUSER website are so close, they may have realized after the Jinni fiasco that anything they say can be legally construed to be binding on RED camera company (as it should be). So I expect that in the future REDUSER will only be a place for questions and comments from people not associated with RED and RED marketing announcements. By moving their interactions to Facebook they create a legal buffer.

Like Chris I have concerns about RED's viability over the next years. RED has had a number of stumbles and with the competitive environment I don't think things will be any easier.

When it comes to time, these cards are the ONLY ones that acts like this. I have cards for my oldest DSLR that still has photos on them but have been sitting in a drawer for over a decade. They work fine, there's nothing wrong with them.

Time should not be a factor and especially not a three months hiatus. Not everyone is an owner operator that works every single week with their camera. My company focus on many different things including post and 3D so the cameras are mostly used whenever they're needed, it could be three projects after each other in a month, or no production for almost 6 months, with the bulk being other gigs featuring all on post production or digital production. So naturally my gear will have periods of rest. This cannot be a factor that renders the camera useless.

I agree that Phil does a lot, but he's like putting this community on his shoulders. I've been saying for a while now that "Elvis has left the building" when it comes to Red and this community. I remember a time when I could be on set and encounter a problem and putting up a post on this forum generated a wonderful community feedback and direct feedback to people at Red who contributed with fast troubleshooting and actually helped such issues. Now everything is boiled down to contacting Red support with days or weeks of back and forth of the similar style messages like "have you tried restarting your computer"-type feedback. Red just isn't here anymore, this forum is like a town that once had a government that has left it to govern itself. With Phil almost as someone who tries to keep things together. I don't know why this is, what prompted Red to abandon the forum and community like this, but almost all communication now is carefully crafted livestreams, marketing videos and celebrity influencing. But that wasn't Red to me, it was this forum and this community existing closely with the core of Red.

Other camera manufacturers will become even better. Quality can only go so far before some other innovation needs to create attention. 8K isn't a "wow" factor anymore, it's common, full frame isn't a wow factor, it's coming, DR, color science etc. etc. all have stopped being hype stuff and now it's all about who can do it best. As others start reaching similar quality to Red, it's gonna be seriously hard for Red to keep industry lead in terms of resolution to framerate ratio, as is their primary feature at the moment. What happens when a DSLR comes out with almost all of Red's features without the drawbacks? Maybe even for a lower final price tag? Because it will happen someday so what then? If the community has been abandoned and people just view Red as any other camera company (which essentially they are now), then having problems like these problems I have now is not acceptable, no one will accept this level of failure of equipment.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

I have been told over the years that most issues are indeed user related by several companies

This is my problem though. I'm not just a camera owner, or company using these cameras, I worked for years with technical support for Red systems. I have owned camera gear for over 20 years and have put many man hours into understanding the tech, both hardware and software. When I talk to support, it's because there's nothing left to be checked on my side. If I say there's no hardware error of pins in the readers and camera etc. that is a fact that doesn't need to be addressed because I already checked it. Of course they can't know this, but it always takes time for me to get to the point where I'm more part of the brainstorming to figure the issue out because I have to put days of communication into showing that every "user manual" troubleshooting has already been checked.

I contact support as last resorts, when I've hit a wall with what I can do.

Anyways. Chris knows what to do and hopefully whatever is going on gets resolved. The astronomical low odds of all of his media being bad alludes to likely a firmware or some other weird thing going on. I don't think his media is "bad". Not in that span of time and ownership.

I've contacted support, so the back and forth is on going but not yet solved anything since I need to get a log out of the camera and it would have been wonderful if that was possible without needing the cards (like through the Red control app).

As for the low odds, they're not low if the hardware of the cards is bad. As I've mentioned, I had one card stop mounting after it hadn't been used for a while and then after a couple of minutes it started working again. that was after one or two months of it not being used. And now all of them are the same after three months.

What these facts tell me is that Angelbird cards can't be left alone, they need to be used at least once a month or else they risk being bricked.

I don't think this is an issue that has to do with user error or just being unlucky, this clearly leans towards the hardware being bad, bad design or bad quality parts. Since others have had similar issues with their Angelbird cards, it points to the cards and their hardware just being plain bad and untested in terms of how they perform after time not used. An extremely common thing that should have been tested.

I bet that you use your camera much more, right? You don't have Angelbird cards laying in a drawer unused for three months? So you probably won't have experienced this. But you could test it out, just take a card you have material on and leave it in a drawer for three to four months and then see if it works.

It's the easiest test people can do to see if their cards behave the same. If they do, if almost everyone's Angelbird cards have troubles mounting after that short time, that should inform what this is about. I suspect bad hardware, or that those first adopters of Komodo got a really bad batch of cards that every one who got their cards back then risk their cards if they leave them alone.

Maybe these cards have an onboard battery that is needed charged in order to keep the stability of the card going. At least we didn't get any such memo when we bought these cards, but it would explain a lot.

If this is the case, Red needs to compensate everyone getting such faulty cards, it's not ok to have such a massive problem hidden from buyers.

 

[Phil Holland]

I bet that you use your camera much more, right?

As I mentioned, I tested cards that I did have stored as my 1TB are in my main kit. They are 512GB and haven't been used in well over a year. The only thing that needed to happen we formatting once the card was detected.

So yes. 2X cards tested that were dormant for much longer. Tried one of my 1TB cards that I'm certain hasn't had footage on it since last year as well. Also fine.

I understand very intimately how media works as this point, which is truly why I don't think this is a card issue. Firmware or something else perhaps, there's also some strange behavior described that alludes to some other theories. RED cards, Angelbird cards, all have warranties if there is something wrong with them and you are within that window, there will be a solution.

Just go through the process with support and see what is to come of your unique situation. It is unusual to say the least. There's thousands of these cameras on the market and I have no clue on how much media is out there. I'm certain people have had issues with all sorts of things, but this is again unusual.

 

[Björn Benckert]

tip.
Buy a new card see if it goes south like the others if so its not the cards but other hardware.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

As I mentioned, I tested cards that I did have stored as my 1TB are in my main kit. They are 512GB and haven't been used in well over a year. The only thing that needed to happen we formatting once the card was detected.

Angelbird or other cards? I'm beginning to believe that the batch of cards that went out with the early black Komodo adopters was faulty as hell, and I picked the shortest straw and got fucked with four cards out of that batch.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

tip.
Buy a new card see if it goes south like the others if so its not the cards but other hardware.

That's the plan, but it's also hard to know as I need to keep that card in a drawer for three months to verify that part as well. I'm absolutely sure that there's nothing with the camera or computers that "destroys the cards". That's a long shot in my opinion. I think the truth is more simple, the cards have bad hardware in them, they're not good cards at all. Similar experiences by other people on the Angelbird cards with no problems with other brands, kind of confirm that suspicion.

If people have reported problems with Angelbird cards not mounting, or not working, but other brands do, and I get this problem with all four of my cards not working, it kind of points to the fact that Angelbird cards are the bad apple in all of this. It's what the facts point to, so far at least.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

I've managed to get one card mounting in the camera. It prompts me to search it for errors and the card itself gets detected but cannot be opened on any computer, old mac, PC, new Macbook, neither. In the camera, I can play some files and I'm now transferring some files through the FTP feature, which is the only way for me to transfer these files as the card cannot be opened on any computer. While a quarter of the files could be transferred and I'm trying to force a few more files to be transferred, they all have glitches and errors on them, clearly data errors on the files themselves.

So, is this a sign of degrading data on the SSD? Is it that there's some kind of power inside the cards that is responsible for keeping the data in memory? Why is the Angelbird cards doing this, but others don't? If going by other's experience that is similar to mine?

 

[Björn Benckert]

That's the plan, but it's also hard to know as I need to keep that card in a drawer for three months to verify that part as well. I'm absolutely sure that there's nothing with the camera or computers that "destroys the cards". That's a long shot in my opinion. I think the truth is more simple, the cards have bad hardware in them, they're not good cards at all. Similar experiences by other people on the Angelbird cards with no problems with other brands, kind of confirm that suspicion.

If people have reported problems with Angelbird cards not mounting, or not working, but other brands do, and I get this problem with all four of my cards not working, it kind of points to the fact that Angelbird cards are the bad apple in all of this. It's what the facts point to, so far at least.

Possibly. For me the Angelbird cards have worked with no hiccups but yes they been in somewhat heavy rotation and not shelf for more than a week at the time and as I remember I ordered / got the camera just when they started to sell the black ones. But maybe I was lucky to get a different batch / later iteration.

But still sounds odd that you would have managed to get 4 bad seeds so to speak. If the overall error rate was that 4/4 cards fail I think this thread would be quite massive.

 

[William Long]

I just checked one that has been on the shelf for more than a year, no problems. (AVpro1TB - Firmware AVC2.17) Not very helpful I'm afraid.

What did Angelbird say, normally they are very helpful? And don't they have a three year warranty?

 

[Patrick Tresch]

Where is Red? or no more Red on Reduser?

 

[Christoffer Glans]

Where is Red? or no more Red on Reduser?

As I've said, Elvis has left the building. I think they've abandoned any community communication as we had it before. Now it's scripted live streams with moderated questions, crafted marketing "how too's" and influencer-style marketing with celebrities. I think there's a core community with a few people that gets to communicate as a form of "approved beta testers", but that's just speculation.

The problem with all of this is that Red doesn't do cameras that are "done" when they start shipping. The community was "fine" with this since they had a very good track record of helping out when there were any issues. But I think that Komodo sold too well. It made the influx of support cases dramatically increase and communication became way too much to handle. And now I think this is gonna be a problem for Red, because "betatesting" in the old way was a community effort. I remember getting my hands on the first Epic MX ever in Sweden doing some tests and reporting problems and it was a massive back and forth without the "complaining" rhetoric that is usual these days. Eventually the Epic MX, through the community, became a rock-solid camera that was really the revolutionary camera Red One was aimed to be but didn't become due to all the errors and problems.

And this continued into the Dragon sensor (still the most revolutionary sensor in my opinion) and during the DSMC2 era, where the camera bodies were fine-tuned. All the issues with DSMC2 cameras were documented by the community and solutions were made and put together collectively, with the help from Red R&D.

But when the communication stops, while the cameras coming out still behave like Red cameras usually do, it makes it problematic for people to fix their issues. Blanket statements and marketing speak gets standardized every time someone complains about an issue.

For example, I've put a lot of work into trying to find out the errors with the IPP2 standard transforms showing splotchy shadow details eventually finding irregularities in the DR curves. But instead of that being a healthy conversation in the community it was met with mostly silence and people trying to defend Red rather than participating in the investigation. Such things in earlier days would have been a community effort to help improve the camera further. Like how the Dragon sensor noise issues led to the wonderful solution of being able to choose OLPFs. A problem became a very nice feature.

Now we have people desperately showing problems with both Komodo and Raptor trying to get some communication going. People are working in the dark with beta features and unstable firmware. Hardware issues with no real physical solution from Red etc. It's fine if they stopped communicating and changed gears in how they operate. But keeping the same beta-level status of their shipped cameras while doing so is just increasing the unreliability of their systems as information flow about issues is limited.

Look at how other camera manufacturers operate. Their cameras are far more stable than Red, and their changes take time, but you get the reliability that you pay high prices for. If Red's gonna be a company that has the same tight-lipped communication with the outside, then they need to deliver a better final shipping quality, otherwise, it won't matter if resolution and framerates or DR are a bit higher than everyone else, the unreliability creates more problems than sub-8K resolution, one stop less DR, not over 60 fps etc. People rather choose a system with fewer cutting-edge image specs than risk that their footage gets corrupt or the cards or camera bricks in the middle of the shoot.

Red needs to overhaul the way they support Red users because this silent treatment is not good for anyone.

-------

The good thing though is that support is investigating the case. But nothing new about the cards. I managed to get one card going, as mentioned, but that card is also bricked now. Managed to pull out a log of the camera through FTP transfer, so hopefully that will tell something of how the camera "views" the cards.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

Support came back to me with the... as usual... standard "send in the camera" request.

Like, the cards failed OUTSIDE of the camera, like, the cards failed regardless of being mounted to the camera between working and not working, but they still just ask me to send in everything. There's no word on what their findings are, there's no response to the info I provided, it's just a blanket statement about sending in the camera.

I'm getting tired of this. It's the kind of response you get when they actually don't know what is going on. The facts point towards the cards being faulty, that Red sold me bad cards that failed when not being used for some time. Of course, that kind of problem goes outside warranty time because the warranty time is shorter than the time it takes for them to fail.

I'm predicting me having to pay for sending in the camera, then getting the camera back without anything done to it, and nothing will be resolved, or it will be resolved and then the cards will fail again. Getting fed up with how these things are going.

 

[William Long]

Christopher, I really understand your frustration. RED's contact and service has really diminished.

I use to recommend these cameras to all and sundry but I wouldn't do that now. Never-ending-beta cameras!

Dumb question; have you tested the cards on another camera? If you get the same result, surely all you have to do is to send in the cards?

 

[Christoffer Glans]

Christopher, I really understand your frustration. RED's contact and service has really diminished.

I use to recommend these cameras to all and sundry but I wouldn't do that now. Never-ending-beta cameras!

Dumb question; have you tested the cards on another camera? If you get the same result, surely all you have to do is to send in the cards?

I have a friend with a Komodo I could do that with, but it won't change supports minds. However advanced I am in knowledge about Red systems, it doesn't matter to them, they always tell people to send in their cameras. Basically, from what I understand, it's the beta-style release hardware that's the problem.

Red tries to be so cutting edge that they cut down reliability in favor of good marketing specs. Instead of making a camera and tested configurations that has a 99,95% working rate, they just wing it and hope to catch up with firmware updates.

If they ever release a Komodo 2, they HAVE TO be done with it to the extreme lengths others take on reliability. There cannot be some half-assed beta release that they scam onto people. Be done with the camera or wait until it's done, then and only then release it.

It's the whole reason why other cameras cost more and have less specs than Red. I much rather have a modest Red camera with superior reliability than some unstable overclocked computer that makes me nervous every time I start it up since I don't know if it's gonna make it through the day this time. And for a guy like me who treats my gear with such care that I get mocked by colleagues for being overly cautious with everything, it's ridiculous how often I've had problems with Red gear.

So yeah, I'm pretty much done with Red. If they don't change course it's a ticking time bomb titanic to handle stuff as they do nowadays. I'm one of the few who recommended Red in Sweden, a country in which Arri and Sony dominate the commercial and film industry. But it's at a point now where I'm just too tired and fed up with all of this. I'm done being a Red mechanic just because it's a necessity when using Red cameras, it's supposed to be a creative tool but all I do is troubleshooting shit.

I would have hoped Red could prove me wrong, but they don't really care about the community as they once did.

 

[Roberto Franco]

Awesome dude, thank you!

Still haven't heard anything back from Red support after the last back and forth so I don't know what they're thinking. What I'm thinking is that I should get four new cards for the trouble and that they take note of all the problems people have and get a deal with ProGrade or Sandisk instead. I have old Sandisk CF cards for my older DSLRs and they've been in the drawer for over 12 years now... still work, old memories on those cards, nothing gone.

Hey Christoffer,

Try to contact Angelbird directly as they are the manufacturers. In my case they detected an unstable batch based on serial numbers and they will replace them. The batch was actually pulled from the market but a few cards out there obviously survived. I have sent my 2 cards back today, as soon as I receive the new ones I'll check the reliability for a while and will update this thread.