May be a simple solution to the ERROR 99 problem

[yb98]

Extracted from another forum.
It may help.

Yacine.

=============================================

I have been experiencing sporatic error 99 messages for the past two months with my kit lens and my EF 75-300 f4-5.6 III. I have taken just over 7,000 exposures with my camera in 10 months. Last week was

my long awaited photo expedition to the San Juan Islands of Washington
State. Half way through the trip my Rebel refused to take any pictures.

I tried the obvious things but the error 99 message would not go away. It was consistantly making that partial , incomplete shutter trip noise.

I was actually relieved that it finally broke in the last two months of my
warranty so the repair would be covered. I salvaged the rest of the trip
with my Minolta D7 and got some amazing IR shots that I probably wouldn't

have otherwise. When I got back I called Canon and talked to Gary at 1-(800)828-4040. He asked me to try a few things before I sent the camera in. He said:

1. Carefully clean the 8 gold color lens contact pins on the camera body
lens mount with a pencil eraser. Do this while holding the camera so that
any eraser dust will not fall into the camera.

2. Take out both batteries. Yes, there are 2. I had forgotten about the
smaller Date/Time battery. Also remove the CF memory card.

3. With the batteries removed, turn the camera switch on for 3-5 minutes.
He said that this clears the memory.

4. Turn the camera off and put the batteries and CF card back in.

5. Re-attach the lens and turn it back on.

I did all of this and my camera works fine now. I had to re-enter the date
and time and re-select parameter 2 but my Rebel is now working again
and I'm much relieved that it was something that simple all along. Gary
was very courteous and knowlegable and waited patiently on the phone
while I went though his procedure. He said that I could send the camera

in for service if the problem came back. I just thought I would share this experience in case it might help someone else with an error 99 problem.

Craig

[Scottes]

Good to know.

It would also make a lot of sense to clean the contacts on the lens(es), too.

[SENster7]

Great post, this is great to know! I hear about the Error 99 horror stories, and I just dread, but somewhat expect that it will happen to me one day :(

[CGNKlaus]

As a professional programmer I get hadache about this.

The firmware is posting the error 99 and so the programmers should exactly know at which conditions this error will be posted.

So Canon should tell about the events causing this error...

[Scottes]

I wish more programmers thought like you. Alas, they're few and far between.

[roanjohn]

I used to experience this with my 85 canon prime. So I did a finger swipe on the metal contacts at the edge of my lens........

............and no more ERR 99...............

Ro1

[jwkramer]

1. Carefully clean the 8 gold color lens contact pins on the camera body
lens mount with a pencil eraser. Do this while holding the camera so that
any eraser dust will not fall into the camera.


It is not recommended to clean gold contacts with a pencil eraser. They make special contact cleaner for this purpose. I would not recommend making a habit of doing this... you will "erase" the gold plating off of your contacts, and this is what keeps your contacts from eroding. You will eventually have many more problems than you started with...

Check out this site:

http://shopping.netledger.com/s.nl/c.ACCT113328/sc.2/category.178/.f

-Jim

[robertwgross]

I've worked with gold electrical contacts for many years. Your typical pencil or ink eraser has some grit in it, and that will slowly wear out the gold finish on those contacts. Then you will have a problem worse than what you started with. There are some soft rubber erasers that have little, if any, grit. Often they do a reasonable job on gold contacts without scraping away too much gold. Basically, if you hold the gold contacts up to a bright light, and if you can see the swirl patterns that the eraser just made on the gold, then you have gone too far already.

Often times the eraser is not necessary. Often just a piece of clean dry cloth will take away any moisture that may have collected there. Try not to leave any cotton lint behind.

---Bob Gross---

[jwkramer]

So I did a finger swipe on the metal contacts at the edge of my lens........

............and no more ERR 99...............

Ro1

also, not a good idea... your finger has oils on the skin that will be left on the contact and make matters worse. If you have any doubt - try cleaning your lens with your finger, and see how it looks when you are finished...

-Jim

[RDKirk]

As a professional programmer I get hadache about this.

The firmware is posting the error 99 and so the programmers should exactly know at which conditions this error will be posted.

So Canon should tell about the events causing this error...

Error 99, though, specifically means that an unknown condition exists.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Exactly.. Error 99 is not somethig that the programers have identified.. there are other error numbers that have a specific meaning.. CF Ccard error,. lens communication error etc..

But Error 99 is the dsiplayed when the Camera knows oly one thing.. that there is an error.. but it has no idea of the cause.

This is why there is a good number of things that can cause an error 99... Lens communication seems to be a big offender oddly given there is specfific error code for the same problem.. but other things can cause it,. like a stuck shutter or a bad Microdrive. (can you say "MagicStor")