30D Flash suddenly stopped working

[MicheleRF]

I know nothing lasts forever but I used my 30D all week and had not even an inkling of a problem with the on board flash. I went to use the camera tonight with the 580EXII mounted on the hot shoe and it wouldn't fire. I thought maybe the batteries in the flash unit were low so I took the 580 off the camera and tried the on board flash and now that's not working either :(. The flash wouldn't open up when the button was depressed and didn't give me any kind of error signal. I had been using second curtain flash and changed that back to default while the 580 was still attached thinking maybe that was an issue with the 580 but still no flash. I changed the camera battery pack thinking maybe some fresh strong batteries might make a difference but no go. Any ideas anyone?

[David B12]

Which shooting mode are you using? Manual, shutter priority, etc.?

[MicheleRF]

Aperture priority, spot metering. I did find a thread on the forums that might relate to my problem. That being, the microswitch on the hotshoe may have stayed down when I took off the external flash and the camera still "thinks" the external flash is mounted and, therefore, not open and fire. I'm going to try the suggested solutions and go from there. Wish me luck and thanks for your response.

Michele

[Titus213]

There is a small switch under one of the rails on the hot shoe that tells the camera there is a flash mounted in the shoe. That will prevent the built in from coming up I believe. Clean the tracks under the rail on the camera hot shoe.

[MicheleRF]

Thanks. I am going to give that a try :)

[FlashZebra]

Thanks. I am going to give that a try :)
You may want to look at this webpage that details the Canon hotshoe and the flash switch.

http://www.conraderb.com/flashrepair/

Enjoy! Lon

[MicheleRF]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and links. It was the hotshoe microswitch and it came right up with very little effort on my part, thank goodness!!