Anyone else's 7D AF go on the fritz within the first year?

I bought my 7D new last August and this past weekend the AF just went kaput. I was out shooting beach volleyball in massive sunlight and the AF consistently back or front focused. I made sure no settings had changed on the camera and alcohol swabbed the connections between the body and the lens (70-200L 2.8 IS II) which I've never had an issue with. It would lock focus just as quickly as it ever had, but it would just be ever so slightly off. My keeper rate of 9 in 10 shots just about turned opposite to a keeper rate of 1 or 2 in 10. It had a bit better luck locking focus on extremely contrasty suits, but even that was hit and miss. I swapped the lens onto my 50D and focus was back to dead-on, so it's obviously the 7D body. Batteries were full charge and I disconnected and reconnected the grip again just to see if that might have had a bad connection to cause this.

This happen to anyone else with their 7D? It's packed up and being shipped off to Canon today but it was sorely missed this weekend when I had to switch back to my 50D (I forgot how spoiled I have become with the 7D AF) for water polo and track, and will be missed even more next weekend for another swim & dive competition. The 50D makes me work much harder, but it was good practice again for using cameras with fewer AF points and less sophisticated AF mechanisms. I wish they could ship me out a loaner in the meantime, lucky CPS members...

Have u tried pulling both batteries out, to do a camera reset? Although that's a reset but it retains your customized AF settings IIRC.

maybe the heat of being in "massive sunlight" tweaked something in the lens.

Both batteries were out while I re-seated the grip. I tried the camera on two different days, the camera having sat without batteries for about 18 hours in between.

rick_reno wrote in post #14353583
maybe the heat of being in "massive sunlight" tweaked something in the lens.

I don't quite follow how the lens being in the sun would cause this. By massive sunlight I meant a plethora of light, not massive heat. It was only about 80 degrees out.

I think he means bright light = Sensor issues if you are shooting directly towards the sun I can see it maybe causing an issue.

Have you tried the camera without the battery grip?

Yea, I wasn't shooting directly into the sun.

No, actually didn't try the camera without the grip attached, but did turn it off when I was trying to narrow down the culprit.

I would remove it totally from the equation, put the stock battery door back on and put a battery in and try that.

Yea, it's all packaged up right now and sitting in the car to be dropped off at usps later today but I think I'll take it back home and do a hard reset (remove the battery and coin battery for 30 minutes) and see if that might do the trick. I hate that I'll lose my file numbering, though, as I use that as a sort of quick date taken reference for when I'm looking/sorting through pictures that aren't in their date folders on the computer. Any idea how to avoid losing that or be able to restore the last file number?

Fligi7 wrote in post #14353585
Both batteries were out while I re-seated the grip. I tried the camera on two different days, the camera having sat without batteries for about 18 hours in between.

Both batteries as in the Camera battery and the watch battery as opposed to both in the grip ?

Both batteries in the grip were out, leaving only the coin battery in the camera, which I've yet to remove. Sorry for the ambiguity.

In answer to OP question:
My 7D was purchased new 16 months ago.
No probems at all.

Not too short of 3 years with mine, AF has been faultless.

As an aside, I did some reading up on file numbering. After the hard reset, it will pick up in numbering where it last left off on the same card as long as it's set to "Continous Numbering" (which it currently is).

Fligi7 wrote in post #14354259
I hate that I'll lose my file numbering, though, as I use that as a sort of quick date taken reference for when I'm looking/sorting through pictures that aren't in their date folders on the computer. Any idea how to avoid losing that or be able to restore the last file number?

I can't say for certain with the 7D, but most Canon bodies will read the number on the card and go from there, so saving your last images on the card and using it without formatting it first, should continue from that number. I'm not sure what it would do about the file number though, but image number should be good to go at least. It's certainly worth a try and setting a card up ready before doing the reset.