PANIC! 20D Firmware update hung up

[Dami]

...at 94%. It's been sitting like there for 10-15 minutes. What do I do now?

Anyone else have this problem?

[defordphoto]

The latest upgrade does sit at 94% for some time, but I never watch mine. However, I know for a fact it was not 10-15 mins as the total upgrade was 3-4 minutes at best.

Eventually you have to turn it off. Possibly you may have to send it to Canon, but I have read of people re-installing the firmware without issue. You might try another card though.

Good luck.

[Toogy]

I have read of this happening to people and they simply turned the camera off and then retried updating the firmware and it worked for them the second time without any problems.

[AjP]

I had same problem, waited and waited, finaly turn off the cam, reload firmware to CF(I thought some errors there), start pushing button like menu, no effect, I start panic'n, then have no clue what I pushed, firmware start loading again, and this time went all the way with no prob.

[Dami]

Whew, thanks so much for the reassurances. I did try again and it installed just fine. It's still a very new camera to me and I got a bit worried.

[defordphoto]

Whew, thanks so much for the reassurances. I did try again and it installed just fine. It's still a very new camera to me and I got a bit worried.

Okay neighbor...go shoot some photos...Nice sunset we have here in the Portland/Vancouver area...;)

[hmongstang]

mine did stop around 94% too.. omg, i think my heart skipped a beat or two.

[DwightMcCann]

Once again the power of Photography-on-the.net shows through.

[Feihung08]

Is this firmware upgrade even really worth the trouble???

[Jackal]

What's with people almost dieing if it gets stuck?

What does happen if it goes wrong? Someone mentioned having to send it to canon.........Do you actually have to do this?

[Tdragone]

Jackal;

This is the type of thing I deal with on a daily/weekly basis...

Firmware is what the camera access when it first turns on; like the black and white text you see when your computer turns on and it tests memory/looks for hard drives etc...

If an install goes bad; (doesn't happen often; but when it does...) the camera cannot finish it's power on cycle to turn on and give you a menu to try to reload it again; the camera is basically 'brain dead'.

Canon either has a utility to pump down firmware into the camera; or has to remove the chip the firmware is located on (Like the BIOS chip in a PC) and reflash in a cmos writer.

Sounds like canon has prevented the flash update from bieng usable until it it tests okay.

Hope this helps; and this is why we all freak when a firmware update on anything hangs...
-Tom D.

[NJames73]

Probably a stupid question....but I just purchased the 20D from B&H.....I shouldnt have to update should I?

[Paul_B]

As a really new 20D owner, I haven't checked to see about firmware update. Everything works (far as I know), why mess with it.

But, after reading this thread. I remember putting the wasia firmware on my dRebel. Same thing, died on 1st try, just hung there forever. Had to remove battery and try a second time. It worked.
When I traded in rebel, I went back to canon firmware. Same thing happened, I started installing and stopped.
Removed battery and tried again, 2nd try again worked fine.

Anyhow, I feel what your saying when camera hangs when it's not 100% complete. I know the feeling twice now, 1st time was bad.

[garbidz]

luckily I read this alert after having updated mine
with zero problems
You must be using corrupted/corrupting Windows stuff?

[Feihung08]

Hmmmmm....still no one knows exactly what this firmware upgrade is for. Meaning how necessary is like.

NJames73, just got my from B&H this morning too! And what I know about firmware upgrades is that it doesn't matter how old your camera is because it upgrades/fixes some feature on the camera that was there from the original manufacture specs. So if it's something worth upgrading (faster boot up time, faster writing to memory) then we should do it. But I'm not gonna do it anyway! Cause I wouldn't know the difference at this point anyway!