memory card no longer staying depressed in Vixia HF G30 camcorder

[robertjm]

Hi all,

In 2015 we bought a Canon Vixia HF G30 camcorder to record sermons at our church. It's worked faithfully week in and week out ever since. Saturday, after pre-recording yesterday's service, I went to swap SD cards like normal. (I have two cards I rotate so I can leave one card in the camera at all times).

The card will NOT stay depressed in Slot A. It just pushes up as if there's no latch whatsoever. I can move the same card over to Slot B, and it stays depressed nicely. I did try a different card, and it stays depressed about once every fifth try, in case that suggests anything. And it did allow me to record. But, in all honesty, I'm worried it's going to pop out in the middle of a sermon and ruin the recording.

If it ends up being broken, is there any way to tell the camera to record off Slot B as the primary instead? I tried doing that. But, it keeps telling me that Slot A is empty.

And if I can't bypass Slot A, can I hook it up to a laptop by HDMI, and record to a computer instead? Or is it going to still demand a card in Slot A? I don't have a cable at home to test this right now.

Unfortunately, Canon's West Coast repair center is closed for the duration of the COVID-19 lock down, so I would need to send it to Virginia if it needed repairs, which means I wouldn't have it back any time soon.

Any suggestions on getting this thing to work?

Robert

[Inapickle · Accepted solution]

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@robertjm wrote:

If it ends up being broken, is there any way to tell the camera to record off Slot B as the primary instead? I tried doing that. But, it keeps telling me that Slot A is empty.

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If the camcorder is set to record video to Slot A and there is no card in Slot A, for sure the message that Slot A is empty will flash on screen when you power-on into Camera mode. But once that message has dissappeared after a couple of seconds you should be able to go into the Menu > Recording Setup > Recording Media and change the 'Rec Media for Movies' to 'Mem. Card B', as per page 37 in the User Manual under 'Selecting the Memory Card for Recordings'. 

So you're saying that you did that and the A>B switch doesn't take effect i.e. reverts back to 'Mem. Card A' ? 

Purely a stab in the dark - try setting the 'Rec Media for Photos' to 'Mem Card B' as well. Shouldn't make any difference under normal operations, but worth a try. Or else a full reset of the camcorder settings - 'Reset All' (page 152) - and try again.

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@robertjm wrote:

And if I can't bypass Slot A, can I hook it up to a laptop by HDMI, and record to a computer instead? Or is it going to still demand a card in Slot A? I don't have a cable at home to test this right now.

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For capture over HDMI it shouldn't make any difference if there are cards in the slots or not.

[robertjm]

Thanks man!

I went back and tried Slot B again, and it allowed me to record to it directly.

In the FWIW department, I was able to get a different card to sit in Slot A. But, it took about five or six tries to actually stay depressed, which makes me nervous.

Since I'm able to use Slot B, think I'll stick with that for now.

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@Inapickle wrote:

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@robertjm wrote:

If it ends up being broken, is there any way to tell the camera to record off Slot B as the primary instead? I tried doing that. But, it keeps telling me that Slot A is empty.

---

If the camcorder is set to record video to Slot A and there is no card in Slot A, for sure the message that Slot A is empty will flash on screen when you power-on into Camera mode. But once that message has dissappeared after a couple of seconds you should be able to go into the Menu > Recording Setup > Recording Media and change the 'Rec Media for Movies' to 'Mem. Card B', as per page 37 in the User Manual under 'Selecting the Memory Card for Recordings'. 

So you're saying that you did that and the A>B switch doesn't take effect i.e. reverts back to 'Mem. Card A' ? 

Purely a stab in the dark - try setting the 'Rec Media for Photos' to 'Mem Card B' as well. Shouldn't make any difference under normal operations, but worth a try. Or else a full reset of the camcorder settings - 'Reset All' (page 152) - and try again.

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[Inapickle]

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@robertjm wrote:

Thanks man!

I went back and tried Slot B again, and it allowed me to record to it directly.

In the FWIW department, I was able to get a different card to sit in Slot A. But, it took about five or six tries to actually stay depressed, which makes me nervous.

Since I'm able to use Slot B, think I'll stick with that for now.

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Glad you got it working with slot B. I agree, not worth taking the chance with slot A if it's dodgy.

[Tim]

robertjm, 

We're sorry to hear that your VIXIA H G60 seems to continue to exhibit issues.  We recommend sending the unit for service at your earliest convenience.  You can set up an online request on our web site at www.usa.canon.com/repair.

[robertjm]

Thanks for the response @Tim. Slight correction. It's a G30, not a G60. Not that it matters necessarily.

After reading @inapickle's response I tried it again, and was able to record directly to Slot B, so I'm happy for now.

We simply don't have the time to send it in for repair and be without a camera at this time and date.

Somewhere down the road perhaps.

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@Tim wrote:

robertjm, 

We're sorry to hear that your VIXIA H G60 seems to continue to exhibit issues.  We recommend sending the unit for service at your earliest convenience.  You can set up an online request on our web site at www.usa.canon.com/repair.

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[mikemathmiller]

You cannot run an HDMI cable from the camcorder to your computer because the HDMI connection on the computer is for output not input. You could buy an HDMI capture card if you want to record to a computer. the output of the capture card is USB which you can plug into your computer.