EOS 20D Odd Issue

[sociableduck]

Hello.  I've been trying to solve an issue with my old Canon EOS 20D.  I sent an email to Canon support but they provided no help (just directed me to their loyalty program because my camera is too old) so maybe someone on this forum has some suggestions as to what my issue my be.  Let me try to be as descriptive as possible to eliminate any confusion.

The main issue I have is with the menu and associated manual settings when in different creative modes.  In Basic shooting, I can press the menu and everything shows up fine (I can adjust things within the main LCD screen, etc...); however, whenever I put the camera in creative mode for manual shooting, my menu does not come up.  I can still take pictures through these creative modes and the main LCD display shows the picture after I've taken it, but alas no info displays when I press the menu button, info, playback, etc... Furthermore, the manual settings were stuck on black and white photos.  

First, I thought I could reset the settings by removing both batteries and doing a hard reset so to speak.  This did not work, even after supposedly discharging the capacitors.  The black and white settings still were maintained somehow.  I then thought perhaps I could mess with the settings by tethering it to my laptop and upgrade the firmware.  This took the better part of a day installing XP virtually and getting everything updated...and still no luck.  Finally, when I updated the firmware, I read that I had to remove the lens (because of some early firmware updates that caused the cameras to brick).  When I removed the lens and proceeded to update the firmware, lo and behold, the extra settings under the manual/creative mode suddenly appeared.  I found the problem!

Now, I can definitely confirm that having the lens in causes my EOS 20D menu and other settings to NOT respond.  As soon as I switch to basic or take out the lens, then the menu and other settings appear and I can adjust everything.  

Is this an issue with connectivity in the lens or some other underlying problem?  I do not have another lens to test out so I have no idea if it could just be something with the lens I have now.

Any help would be appreciated and sorry for the long post, I just wanted to alleviate any potential suggestions that I've already tried.

Regards,

D

[cicopo]

You are going to need to find another lens to isolate this & better yet another body to mount your lens to would be advisable. Something like this requires substituting known good components.

[sociableduck]

That was going to be my next step if I can find someone to help or if a repair/camera shop would not mind testing it for me. I do that sort of thing all the time diagnosing hardware issues on computers (but only because I have quite a bit of spare parts). I was hoping someone might have experienced or heard of this issue happening. I do appreciate the response and suggestion though.

[sociableduck]

**Update**

I was able to get a hold of another lens and attached it to my older camera. Manual settings and menu still will not work. The lenses do work on another camera and bring up the settings just fine.

To recap, I can take off the lens and have all the manual settings and menu accessed and a new lens does not fix the problem.

Does this possibly mean the connectors/pins where the lens attaches may be damaged or is it possible something internally is screwed? I'm leaning more toward a connection issue since the problem does not persist once the lens is removed.