EOS R7 low battery issue

[Marylandshooter]

I have an R7 for about a year now and have never had any problems but in the last few days I have begun to get premature low battery messages (“change or charge battery”) in red text.  These seem to be happening after only a very short time, and with multiple batteries that I know were fully charged. When I check the batteries in another canon camera (6DmkII) they show as having plenty of charge remaining. I just updated the firmware last night (1.4.0) hoping this might fix the problem but it’s still doing it today. Ideas?

[shadowsports]

Greetings,

In the future, I would recommend that you not perform a firmware update on a camera or lens that is not functioning or performing as expected.

Start here.  Remove any 3rd party accessories.  Lens, flash, battery grip, mic (if applicable).  Next perform a settings reset (main and custom).  Now retest battery performance with one or more batteries.

Battery basics.  Batteries should not be stored in your camera.  A few days, even a week is OK, but not longer.  If you aren't going to use a battery for an extended period, it should be charged to about 50% and stored in a cool, dry place.  When a battery is put back into service, it may take 1-2 full charge / discharge cycles to return to normal capacity.  To extend battery life, a battery should not be charge to 100%, discharged to 40-50% and then recharged to full again repeatedly.  This decreases the capacity and overall life of the battery.  Instead fully charge and discharge to almost empty before charging again.  This is called battery conditioning.  Batteries do eventually lose their ability to fully charge and discharge while maintaining their rated output.  Batteries which are exposed to extreme temperature variation can also exhibit degraded performance over time.  I recall most body's will keep track of 3-5 registered batteries.  I put a small piece of blue tape on mine and the date they went into service.  Depending on usage you can usually count on 3-5 yrs of service, but I've gotten more than 5 in some cases before I started to notice power drop off.  Keep an eye on your batteries too.  Rotate them regularly and always look for signs of age.  Bulge or swelling.  Using OEM batteries is always your best bet. 😃       

[Marylandshooter]

Thank you but I don’t think the batteries are the problem here. I am very familiar with the proper charging procedures. I also know not to store batteries in the camera which isn’t a problem anyway because I use the camera virtually every day.
As I said, when placed in another camera the batteries all work fine and have plenty of charge left in them. I check them using the battery info item in the menu. Remaining capacity and recharge performance has been fine on every one I have checked. 

The batteries aren’t the problem here. There is something causing the camera to “think” that the batteries are run down when they are not.  Has anyone else experienced this?  Would appreciate any helpful answers. 
Thanks!

[shadowsports]

Greetings,

Did you see the "start here" portion of my post?

I think your batteries are probably fine too.  Resetting the camera and removing any 3rd party accessories is the next step in determining correct operation.  This includes a problem or fault with an accessory or the body itself.  We need a common starting point.  Otherwise it's just guessing. 😉

[Marylandshooter]

Thanks Rick. There are no third party attachments. I sometimes use a Canon 320 EX Speedlight but that has not been attached when this problem has occurred. 
The only thing I haven’t done is to reset all settings to the factory defaults. That will probably be the next step. I’ve been reluctant to do that because I will have to go back and reset everything and there are a lot of settings.
I was hoping to find that other people have experienced this same problem but so far I’ve seen no reports of it. As I said, just two nights ago I upgraded to firmware version this 1.4.0 but now I see that version 1.5 is available. Was this just released yesterday?  It didn’t show up on the list of updates on Thursday. 

[Waddizzle]

After you fully reset the camera, do not go  into the menu system and re-enter your settings right away.  Doing so defeats the point of resetting the camera. 

[shadowsports]

Thanks Waddizzle!

@MarylandShooter, v1.5.0 was released 6-6-2024.