EOS 7D Mark II: Memory card containing firmware is required to update error

[lilsheri]

Happy to be here and hoping to get a bit of help...I'm not savvy with our camera nor computers much and only use the photos app on my MAC desktop to store/view photos and videos - I'm currently dreading updating to the SSD I just purchased as the current external is kinda maxed out and is SUPER slow.  I hoped that updating the firmware might help with that too, but I'm having difficulty

I've been trying to update the firmware on our 7D Mark II and watched videos etc on how to do so.  I've downloaded the firmware to my MAC and attempted to load it via a card reader onto the formatted card.  The firmware shows in the directory for the card but when I attempt to install it in the camera it keeps giving me the following notice "memory card containing firmware is required to update".  When I look on the card - it shows that the firmware is there, next to the DCIM and MISC folder.  I'm not sure what I am doing wrong that the camera doesn't recognize the firmware on the card once it's inserted into the camera.  I must have missed a step but I keep going over the instructions provided by Canon as well as the videos I've found online.  Please help!!

[FloridaDrafter · Accepted solution]

Hello, lilsheri, and welcome to the forum!

Be sure that the file on your card has the extension FIR (xxxxxxx.FIR) and that it isn't the same version that's already on the camera (it happens). If you have cards in both slots, CF and SD, put the FIR file on the SD, make sure there are no older firmware files on the SD. Now remove the CF card from slot one and insert the SD in slot 2. You will get a message saying a slot is empty when you power on, just let it go away.

You should be able to install, but please report back with the results or any more questions.

Newton

[lilsheri]

Thank you this worked!!! I appreciate the response and step by step.  Trying to copy to the CF card was my mistake apparently.  Thank you again.  

[p4pictures]

When you get the firmware downloaded it is a disk image file, that often auto opens on the mac. The file will be something like eos7d2-v113-mac.dmg 

You will need to double click this to open it as a window, to see the actual firmware file inside the disk image you downloaded. It will look something like this screenshot below. The file 7D200113.FIR is the one that needs to be copied to your camera memory card.

Once you put the memory card from the camera in to the computer card reader, then it can be opened like this below. You need to single click on the firmware from the window above and drag it to the memory card as shown below. 

Then eject the memory card from the computer and put it in the camera. The firmware update should work fine. If your camera firmware is already 1.1.3 then you don't need to do an update anyway.

[lilsheri]

Thank you for the response, I was able to get it to work with the SD card instead of the CF card.  Thanks again!