T4i camera completely locking up in the ON position?

[bigguy841]

I have had my Canon T4i for about 4 months now, use ita few times a week as a hobby. Every couple weeks I will turn on the camera and adjust the Ap/Sh/ISO settings to prepare for a shoot and the camera will just freeze or lock up in the spot. None of the buttons or dials trigger any sort of response from the camera and I am not able to take a picture or do anything. Even turning th camera to the 'OFF' position does nothing and the camera remains on with the LCD still lit up but not responding. The only way I am able to get the camera working again is to remove the battery and then put it back in and power it up, at which point it usually works normally. The only time I've had this happen more than once in a day was over Thanksgiving when it happened about 3-4 times throughout the day.

I contacted Canon support and was told to first try resetting the camera to default settings, which I did, and if that doesn't work to remove the battery and memory cards and using a pencil eraser to clean off the contact surfaces of those items, which I have not done yet. If it continues to happen, I am supposed to send it in to let them inspect it and decide if if needs repair or replacement. Since it seems random and spread out, it's hard to say whether it's 'fixed' since it did it last week before I re-set the settings.

Has anyone had this problem? If so, did you do either of those methods to solve it? If you sent it in, were they able to determine the problem and handle it? I don't want to send it in and be without my camera for weeks only for them to tell me it worked fine for them and there is no problem, since it works fine 98% of the time as of now.

Any help would be great!

[luxopancas]

I'm having a similar problem. Try switching OFF and ON quickly, but dont so quickly. Turn it off and before the screen turns off, return to ON again. It works for me, but at each picture I take, the camera lock up again. What I do to can, at least, take some pictures, is change the Custom Function 6 (Shutter/AE lock button) to option 1:AE lock/AF and then I can focus using the AE lock button (*).

[RichTucson]

I have the same issue - T4i locking up in the ON position.  I bought the camera approximately 16 months ago and didn't use it much until this month and a few times the camera locked up and I had to remove and reinstall the battery to get it to function again.  Being concerned the camera had some defect I did some experimenting to determine if there is a sequence of events that causes the lock up.  

I had been using the 18-135 STM and as I remembered the camera would lock up when I forgot to remove the lens cap then turned the camera ON and then turned ON the "Live View Shooting".  With no image in the monitor I realized the lens cap was still on and removed it and then found the camera was locked and I couldn't turn it OFF with the switch.  What I found in my experimenting is that when using the 18-135 STM lens, leaving the lens cap on, turning the camera ON and turning the "Live View Shooting" ON causes the camera to lock up each and every time.  I repeated the experiment with the lens (EF-S 18-55 IS II) that came with the camera and found the camera never locks in the ON position.  At least I now know what will cause my camera to lock up when I use the 18-135 STM lens.

I hope someone else will find this helpful. 

[bobakman]

Interesting. Have you updated your cameras firmware to the latest version? If you have and this is still happening then the latest firmware update evidently has not corrected the issue. Though yor camera is out of the manufactures warranty I would still call Canon and explain this to their support team and they will make it right for you.
Information on the firmware update for the T4i is below. Good luck.

http://usa.canon.com/cusa/support/consumer?pageKeyCode=prdAdvDetail&docId=0901e0248090cddd

Bob

[RichTucson]

Bob - sorry for taking this long to reply.  I finally got around to updating the camera firmware.  The lock up issue I previously experienced when using the 18-135mm STM lens on my T4i is gone.  I tried several times using the same sequence that previously resulted in a lock-up and it did not happen again.  Best regards, Rich 

[bobakman]

Great glad to hear that it worked for you!

Bob

[FlyingBoat]

I have the same problem. Bought the camera nearly two years ago. Never openned it. Was sitting in bubble wrap until last week. Took it out, used it for a week. Now when I turn it on, all I get is the info screen. I can't go to liveview or the menu.

I tried the tricks on here. It works to turn the camera off and then in about two seconds turn it on again, then I can bring up the menu or turn on live view or look at pictures etc.

I updated the firmware in this method. But it doesn't matter. When the camera is shut off, it can not come up in liveview or have any of the buttons works, unless I do the shut off and turn back on procedure.

I called customer service and tech support and of course, all they can say is send it in for $190 +shipping to have the problem fixed. I did buy this with a Citi Visa CC that does have extended warranty so am hopefull that they will reimburse, though there are issues with that in that Citi changed the CC # since I had bought the the camera do to fraud concern and say now that they don't have any of the old statements on my card and all I had on this were electronic copies at Citi.

Other info with this, is it does take pictures, so it is writing to the card, even though it can't show the pictures or bring up the liveview (without the off on procedure).

Edit: I see the original poster had a different problem. Mine is as explained in this message. I saw other posts where people explained my same issue, but ended up responding in this thread.

[luxopancas]

Hey FlyingBoat!

After all my research I found some similar issues related to old cameras with specific batteries for time and date, like those in our PCs needed to maintain BIOS data saved. In that cameras, we should remove the battery to reset it.

But our T4i cameras use an integrated capacitor to maintain the date and time saved. The battery recharges this capacitor and we can't remove the capacitor to reset the camera. So the solution to us would be to remove the battery from Camera for 2 or 3 days and wait until the capacitor loses its energy. I did this 3 times, and at the last time the camera return o its normal operation. So, from that time, after every use, before I store the camera, I take out the battery.

Hope it works for you!

[FlyingBoat]

Hey, thanks! I talked to the service person about this earlier and he said no, leaving the battery out wouldn't do anything since it just keeps the date. But neither rep I talked to had ever heard of the turn off and then turn back on procedure either, so I figure they just didn't know, because I had heard of someone else leaving battery out for several days as well to get it to work again.

I had left the battery out for about 20 mintutes or so a couple of times today, perhaps the last one reset it? It is working now. I did several off and on sequences to see if I could get that procedure down and then it just started working. So I am not sure what fixed it now or if it is going to come back. So a bit disconcerting that it is intermittant, but I guess I will use it for a couple of weeks and see if the problem comes back. My extended warranty is goine in three weeks.

I also had fiddled with the AF on the lens AF to Manual a few times during the last go arounds before it started working so that may have had something to do with getting it to work as well. 

[cmc2004]

I was also faced the same problem . Solution is very simple just blow the hot air over the switch. 👍🌺👍🌺

[luxopancas]

Hi cmc2004! Just blow with a hair dryer or something like it? I can't try it because my camera finally got fixed.

After some time usinng my camera, it got the problem back and the battery trick don't worked anymore.

So I sent it to a local camera repair shop (not Canon official support) and they just opened it, unplugged all the connectors e plugged it again. That's it.

It was 6 months ago and since then the camera is working fine, like new.