RED mini-mag error on my 4th shoot. Really?

[Samir Patel]

EDIT: Issue resolved. Card replaced under warranty.

So yeah I am not happy. Purchased the 1TB five whole days before they dropped prices. Now after using it on the 4th project (personal projects for no pay mind you) halfway through the shoot after shooting approx 500GB a media error and refused to record to card and immediate shut down. Upon restarting 3 times and trying to record - again the same issues. What the hell? Are you telling me I need to do a secure format after only 4 shoots? I need to do a secure format every time I shoot? I need to send this thing back already? I can only imagine what would have happened if this was a paid shoot. Someone please chime in. Some people in other threads have said they never secure format.

 

[Phil Holland]

I almost never secure format, but it is something I do when I get a new mag and occasionally a new firmware.

I've seen a few folks have that whatever long error message having issues often with a dirty media bay and I've also seen dirty mags cause some frustration. Don't know what you're exactly experiencing but contact your Bomb Squad Rep to get some assistance.

 

[Samir Patel]

I almost never secure format, but it is something I do when I get a new mag and occasionally a new firmware.

I've seen a few folks have that whatever long error message having issues often with a dirty media bay and I've also seen dirty mags cause some frustration. Don't know what you're exactly experiencing but contact your Bomb Squad Rep to get some assistance.

Thanks Phil. Anyway I'm rushing to get whatever I was able to write on the card off of it as soon as possible. Just not happy. Regarding the dirty bay - that's unlikely. Once I put in the card today it was in the whole time and recorded 500GB. Then the problems.

 

[Joel Voelker]

Sounds like the dreaded DSMC2 media error. Did it say "Media is not properly formatted for this camera" or similar? Assume the footage is gone if so. It's not a media issue. You should secure format all new media and secure format after firmware updates though.

 

[Samir Patel]

Sounds like the dreaded DSMC2 media error. Did it say "Media is not properly formatted for this camera" or similar? Assume the footage is gone if so. It's not a media issue. You should secure format all new media and secure format after firmware updates though.

Hi Joel. No that wasn't the error message. It was some other error... It immediately gave me a error message then shut down. There are about 2 folders on my card which had nothing in them except a 0 byte .R3D. The folder before those last 2 had a gigabyte .R3D but even trying a manual copy in windows is giving me a corrupted file error. It looks like it simply could not write anymore (after writing 500gb to a terabyte card). I am still in the middle of copying off the drive. Thankfully what was shot earlier in the day was still there. I just want to get it off the mag before I try to replicate the error message again now that I'm home. You know what though after the first time it happened before I restarted I made a point of pulling the card out and reseating it after the full reboot. (I also remember one thread some time back about someone's card getting wiped upon reboot. Thankfully that did not happen) I'll try to screenshot the exact message after I finish this copy and then make a second copy. I wish I had a spare card to keep shooting. Obviously something I would have purchased. My original intention was to buy 2 x 512s but of course they were out of stock in store the day I went and bought the 1tb. Looking back that was a double whammy. Ugh

 

[Alex Kiritz]

Yeah. My camera has been fucked up since I got a new 960GB card and installed the latest firmware. I get an audio buffer overflow warning sometimes on the new card and a lot of times my camera won't boot. Some times it takes 6 tries before it boots successfully. It's been over a week since I've heard from Red.

 

[Stacey Spears]

Samir, please send a log file to Red to investigate. Hopefully something shows up.

I have got into the habit of doing a secure format with 8K. I have no data to justify secure vs. normal, but I have better piece of mind using secure format. If secure took a long time, then I probably would not do as much.

Joel, I encountered the "Media not not properly formatted for this camera" message on Saturday with a 1 TB mini-mag I borrowed from a friend. It happened the first time I put the mag in the camera. I did a secure format and went on my way.

 

[Samir Patel]

Samir, please send a log file to Red to investigate. Hopefully something shows up.

I have got into the habit of doing a secure format with 8K. I have no data to justify secure vs. normal, but I have better piece of mind using secure format. If secure took a long time, then I probably would not do as much.

Joel, I encountered the "Media not not properly formatted for this camera" message on Saturday with a 1 TB mini-mag I borrowed from a friend. It happened the first time I put the mag in the camera. I did a secure format and went on my way.

Thanks for the input Stacey. I saw one log file on the card when I started my copy. I copied it just in case. Once my backup is done I'll try making a new log file from the camera.

 

[Antony Newman]

I think providing the log files to Red and feeding the results back on this thread would be great

Yesterday I was hitting issues where ejecting the SSD using on-screen gui caused the camera to Shutdown (3 shutdowns in 60 mins).

(Logs sent to Red for analysis.)

AJ

 

[Audy Erel]

Sounds like the dreaded DSMC2 media error. Did it say "Media is not properly formatted for this camera" or similar? Assume the footage is gone if so. It's not a media issue. You should secure format all new media and secure format after firmware updates though.

Do you mean it's not the card and the problem is in the DSMC2 bodies?

 

[Samir Patel]

So this ugly issue reared its head again in the middle of my shoot today. 1tb was only able to record about 500gb before I get the random "media full" error. Then a prompt that the camera is shutting down. Ugh! Anyway I guess this time I have to send it back to RED. I was hoping it was just the secure formatting which I did before using it today. Guess that wasn't the case. And still not happy.

 

[Elsie N]

Samir,

Capt Obvious here. Have you ever recorded a full TB on that card? If not, maybe it is a mis-labeled 520 GB card... or some of the SSD cells are bad?

 

[Samir Patel]

Hi Elsie, it must be a bad card. Last shoot after I first did the Secure Format I was able to record 670GB. Today because it was the only card I had I was not able to record to the end of that previous shoot so I formatted and started from 0 but of course at about 500GB it gave me that same damn error. I was hoping it was only the secure format issues which I though it was after that 670GB shoot. Guess it's not. I'm in the middle of copying off the card right now. I'll send the log to RED this time. I can't deal with this popping up on every other shoot.

 

[Elsie N]

Hi Elsie, it must be a bad card. Last shoot after I first did the Secure Format I was able to record 670GB. Today because it was the only card I had I was not able to record to the end of that previous shoot so I formatted and started from 0 but of course at about 500GB it gave me that same damn error. I was hoping it was only the secure format issues which I though it was after that 670GB shoot. Guess it's not. I'm in the middle of copying off the card right now. I'll send the log to RED this time. I can't deal with this popping up on every other shoot.

As a test while waiting to hear back from RED, how about setting your camera to high compression, low rez format, and just let it roll to see how far it goes? That might reveal if it is unable to handle hi-rez, low compression footy or somesuch.

 

[Samir Patel]

Will try using that technique you mention once I am able to get the card back in the camera

EDIT: I did notice I was on firmware 6.3.17.
Firmware 6.3.73 mentioned "Fixed ‘Media Full’ indication recording Apple ProRes or Avid DNx (DSMC2 only)"
maybe this is something that was fixed along the way in the R3D recording too
I'll try using Elsie's method then next updating to the most recent firmware (which I hate doing because I was getting great images prior to this issue anyway). And will try recording something and try to fill the entire card.

EDIT: upgraded to latest firmware. Tried Elsie's suggestion but still same issue immediately using the existing minimag with the same data on it. I'm over this. I'm sending it back in Monday.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Yeah. My camera has been fucked up since I got a new 960GB card and installed the latest firmware. I get an audio buffer overflow warning sometimes on the new card and a lot of times my camera won't boot. Some times it takes 6 tries before it boots successfully. It's been over a week since I've heard from Red.

Alex my friend Solomon was getting these audio issues and camera shutdowns on a shoot with us last week. Exactly the same issue. See here:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...mags-on-power-up/page19&p=1708429#post1708429

He rolled back his camera to v5.3.49 and everything worked fine.

Going to add your story to that thread - might help to have it all in the same place.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Will try using that technique you mention once I am able to get the card back in the camera

EDIT: I did notice I was on firmware 6.3.17.
Firmware 6.3.73 mentioned "Fixed ‘Media Full’ indication recording Apple ProRes or Avid DNx (DSMC2 only)"
maybe this is something that was fixed along the way in the R3D recording too
I'll try using Elsie's method then next updating to the most recent firmware (which I hate doing because I was getting great images prior to this issue anyway). And will try recording something and try to fill the entire card.

EDIT: upgraded to latest firmware. Tried Elsie's suggestion but still same issue immediately using the existing minimag with the same data on it. I'm over this. I'm sending it back in Monday.

Samir, do other mags work, and just not this one?

Also try rolling firmware back to much older builds. See if that changes anything.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Hi Joel. No that wasn't the error message. It was some other error... It immediately gave me a error message then shut down. There are about 2 folders on my card which had nothing in them except a 0 byte .R3D. The folder before those last 2 had a gigabyte .R3D but even trying a manual copy in windows is giving me a corrupted file error. It looks like it simply could not write anymore (after writing 500gb to a terabyte card). I am still in the middle of copying off the drive. Thankfully what was shot earlier in the day was still there. I just want to get it off the mag before I try to replicate the error message again now that I'm home. You know what though after the first time it happened before I restarted I made a point of pulling the card out and reseating it after the full reboot. (I also remember one thread some time back about someone's card getting wiped upon reboot. Thankfully that did not happen) I'll try to screenshot the exact message after I finish this copy and then make a second copy. I wish I had a spare card to keep shooting. Obviously something I would have purchased. My original intention was to buy 2 x 512s but of course they were out of stock in store the day I went and bought the 1tb. Looking back that was a double whammy. Ugh

Samir did you get any of the error messages Solomon cataloged below? Any of those familiar? He was getting data error messages too, and his Epic Dragon was shutting down.

Didn't lose any media though.

So I am a little late to the party but I have been aware of this issue for quite some time now. I want to share my experience albeit different from the original post and see if anyone has experienced something similar.

Let me start by saying I have been an owner/operator/RED tech in NYC for 6 years now. I recieved my EPIC-M in 2011 and I have never had any major issues with it. A few weeks ago I upgraded my now Epic-M Dragon to the latest firmware 6.3.75. I was operating the camera using 1.8" mags 128gb and 256gb, not shooting high speed nor was it too hot on location.

All of the sudden I started seeing LCD tearing on my 5" touch which I didn't think too much about because I have seen this happen before with other cameras and it was a minor firmware issue.

Next my camera stopped recording saying there was an audio buffer error so I power cycled the camera and started recording again. Everything was fine.

A few hours went by and then I got this error:

I got the error twice in a row and the third time when I restarted the camera and pressed record it worked.

I contacted RED the next day, convinced it was a firmware issue. RED gave me a few things to try. Securely formatting the mags had come up but I had already been doing that for a few years. The last major test was to set the camera to 6k and shoot the highest FPS and lowest compression with the sensor test pattern enabled (this is how I continued testing my camera and mags). They thought the issue was SSD related, at this point I was testing on my own 1.8" 128GB mags not with the original mag on set that I had recording issues with.

I recieved several new errors and was never able to recreate the original issue I had on set.

I saw the following:

And eventually one of my mags would consistently record until there was 9 minutes left on it and then get this error:

At this point after sending a few log files RED tells me it's likely a hardware issue and I should send my camera in. While I was waiting for the RMA I started doing more tests this time I decided to see what would happen if I rolled back the firmware. I tried this with a few builds and then on v 6.2.44 I got this error which I had never seen before:

I reformatted the mag and didn't see that error again. I rolled the camera back up to v6.3.75 and continued receiving this Error:0x00000020 with 9 minutes left.

I wound up having to send my camera out to RED. A board went bad within my camera and it was replaced for free even though the camera is out of warranty.

My camera showed up a few days ago I put my mag in that I had labeled "bad" (the one that consistently had errors with 9 minutes left of recording) and it still didn't work.

I immediately call RED to tell them to reopen my RMA. So while I waited I continued to troubleshoot. I rolled my camera back to v5.3.49 (the earliest firmware you can roll back to according to the version 6 release notes). I put my "bad" card in and it worked. I put my other 2 cards in and they both worked. I saved a log file and rolled up to v6.3.75 and my "bad" mag didn't work again. I tested it several times and it kept getting Error:0x00000020. I sent both log files from v5.3.49 and v6.3.75 to RED and they forwarded them to their engineering team. Today while I waited I decided to roll the camera back to v5.3.49 and keep testing. I ran my "bad" mag 3 times in a row and it worked. I ran my other 2 mags and they were fine and then I ran my "bad" mag for a 4th time and it worked. Then when I rolled up to v6.3.75 and the "bad" mag got Error:0x00000020 again.

Pretty consistent, right?

Has anyone else had similar issues with their cameras?

I'm still waiting to hear back from the engineering team.

 

[Dan Kanes]

I almost never secure format, but it is something I do when I get a new mag and occasionally a new firmware.

I always secure format and teach my camera assistants and anyone I work with it's the only way.

Never had a problem until that one time working with a white edition Helium doing the lens test with nick.

I'm pretty sure I didn't format the media, and so I don't think it was secure formatted.

 

[Tommaso Alvisi]

Yep, lately secure format is the way to do it to avoid issues...