5ds R date/time resetting when battery swapped

[magyarw]

I just had my 5ds R serviced by canon for an unrelated issue. Since getting the camera back, every time I switch batteries, the camera resets the date and time. It also seems to resets to different dates/ times. Sometimes it's 1999/01/01 and today it reset to 2015/01/01. Also, the date and time stamp for each image are not in sequential order so when I look through downloaded images on my computer they are not in the order they were taken in.  

I am aware that leaving the battery out of the camera for a few minutes can reset the date and time but I am swapping for a fresh battery immediately so a battery is only out of the camera for a few seconds.   It's my understanding that these cameras don't have a separate battery for the date/time so I am unsure of how to fix this problem. I've had this camera for a few years and never had this happen before. I know that canon updated the firmware when the camera was serviced, could that have something to do with it?

Any help would be appreciated.

[Waddizzle]

You should contact Canon Product support.  Your repair should have been guaranteed for six months.

[BurnUnit · Accepted solution]

Are they Canon batteries? Regardless of brand, does the camera allow you to "register" the batteries to the camera body?

[magyarw]

Thanks BurnUnit! That seems to have fixed the problem! They are Canon batteries but they were not registered to the camera. I didn't know registering batteries was even a thing before your message. I've been using some of my batteries for 12 years in various 5D cameras and never ran into an issue before so it's weird it took this long. Thanks again for your help 🙂

[BurnUnit]

Cool! But I've got to admit that I was sort of grabbing at straws with that suggestion. I'm honestly not sure what all that registering the batteries does other than tracking the charge condition of multiple batteries in a given body. But there may be more to it than that.

My best, unscientific guess, is that the camera I.D.s each registered battery with a code, possibly based on the date and time when the battery is registered. That would assure no duplication in the batteries I.D. numbers and may also give the camera an estimate of the battery's age. I wouldn't be surprised if the camera even applies some of this information without the battery being registered.

After Canon serviced your camera it was probably reset to its original baseline settings. Maybe that also erases any previous battery info that it might have saved. And maybe, just maybe, when you installed one of your "used" batteries the camera didn't recognize it or didn't like the info it found stored on the battery and shut things down, for whatever reason.

So that's my best wild guess. Though mostly I'm hoping someone else will stop by and explain exactly what registering your batteries does or doesn't really do.

[Waddizzle]

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@BurnUnit wrote:

Cool! But I've got to admit that I was sort of grabbing at straws with that suggestion. I'm honestly not sure what all that registering the batteries does other than tracking the charge condition of multiple batteries in a given body. But there may be more to it than that.

My best, unscientific guess, is that the camera I.D.s each registered battery with a code, possibly based on the date and time when the battery is registered. That would assure no duplication in the batteries I.D. numbers and may also give the camera an estimate of the battery's age. I wouldn't be surprised if the camera even applies some of this information without the battery being registered.

After Canon serviced your camera it was probably reset to its original baseline settings. Maybe that also erases any previous battery info that it might have saved. And maybe, just maybe, when you installed one of your "used" batteries the camera didn't recognize it or didn't like the info it found stored on the battery and shut things down, for whatever reason.

So that's my best wild guess. Though mostly I'm hoping someone else will stop by and explain exactly what registering your batteries does or doesn't really do.

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Good guess, except the camera should have automatically registered the batteries on startup.  This is exactly what happens with new cameras when you first turn them on.  They automatically register the installed batteries.  

Whenever I switch batteries in my battery grips, the camera automatically registers the new batteries.  I suspect that there is an alternate explanation.

[magyarw]

Thanks for your thoughts on this.

I may have spoken prematurely about the fix. It happened again but only with one battery, at least that I have noticed so far, and it was an older battery. That batteries health is very low according to the camera so I will give it a few days, avoid that battery, and see if it still persists.  

[BurnUnit]

Well maybe the process has changed over the years but checking the manual for my 60D it seems to indicate a few steps the owner must perform to register a battery to the camera. There's no mention of the 60D, at least, doing this automatically.

But it also appears that Canon assigns a unique serial number to each battery when it's manufactured. Though the camera does track the date of last usage for each battery. It just doesn't say if it stores this date info in the camera, on a chip in the battery, or both. And in your case it sounds like it might not make a difference either way.

The last page above shows a procedure to delete the registered battery information. Maybe try this if your camera allows you to and see what happens. If nothing else it may give you some more information to share with the Canon techs.

[Waddizzle]

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@BurnUnit wrote:

Well maybe the process has changed over the years but checking the manual for my 60D it seems to indicate a few steps the owner must perform to register a battery to the camera. There's no mention of the 60D, at least, doing this automatically.

[deleted images]

But it also appears that Canon assigns a unique serial number to each battery when it's manufactured. Though the camera does track the date of last usage for each battery. It just doesn't say if it stores this date info in the camera, on a chip in the battery, or both. And in your case it sounds like it might not make a difference either way.

The last page above shows a procedure to delete the registered battery information. Maybe try this if your camera allows you to and see what happens. If nothing else it may give you some more information to share with the Canon techs.

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I guess that did not come out right.  I should have used "detest", instead of "register.  When you install a new battery, the camera detects the new battery.  With Canon batteries, a serial number will be detected and read.  With third party batteries, I think the current date is used in place of a serial number.  All that the battery registration procedure does is store the serial numbers in the camera's internal memory.

[magyarw]

After a few months of this issue I still can't figure out why the date and time keep resetting on this 5D sR. The date and time reset to 99/12/31 for the camera and also the date resets to 99/12/31 for all the battery registration information. If the battery is replaced within about 10 - 15 seconds the date/time will not reset so there must be a bit of residual charge in the camera that keeps the time for a few moments. I mistakenly thought I had solved the issue before but I was just not leaving the battery out of the camera long enough for it to reset. I have 5 batteries and using different batteries does not change the problem.

I need this camera for work so sending it back for repair for such a minor problem is not an option at this time so I would like to find a fix that I can do myself if possible. I can continue to swap batteries quickly but when I mess this up and the date/time resets it makes editing files a pain because image metadata has the incorrect date and time and images end up being out of order and I have to edit the metadata which takes time. Not a huge issue of course but if anyone has a new solution for this annoying issue, let me know.

Things I have tried to solve this problem:

• registering battery to camera
• deleting battery registration info, resetting camera date and time, registering battery again.
• Updating camera firmware
• registering batteries with an older 5D mark II. I tried this because I never registered the batteries with the 5D sR camera before the camera repair and I never had a problem with the date and time before so to eliminate all possibilities I tried replicating my experience with the camera before it's repair by registering a battery with the old camera first and using it with this 5D sr.