Canon 40D err 99 message

JDEORTA

We went hiking today and about 4 miles into the hike I taje a couple pics then I get err 99 right before the best part of the hiking trail:bash. I took it into the shop I bought it from and it had to be sent out and probably won't get it back in time for our trip to Tulum:bash.

Has anyone else had this problem?

Does anyone know what causes the err 99 message?

Blurmore

Most likely thing in a NEW or New-ish camera and an older lens is dirty contacts on the lens. Take a pencil eraser to them. New lens AND camera? Thats a puzzler.

ziggy53

In reading about this "error 99" problem on the 40D I am noticing several comment trends:

Lens connection dirty. Take off the lens and clean contacts on both lens and camera.

Battery contacts dirty. Clean contacts on battery and, if possible, inside the camera as well.

Battery loose in chamber. Insert something in the battery door to put more pressure on the bottom of the battery. A small piece of foam or cardboard seems to be common recommendations.

3rd party batteries. It appears that the Canon 40D is picky about some of the 3rd party batteries and may produce the error more often with some of the batteries.

Vertical grip. It appears that adding a grip can cause some cameras to loose connection more easily. It seems to happen with both Canon and 3rd party grips so it may be a loosening problem or just poor connection or a torque or twist problem or ...

IS lenses. It appears that, similar to some Nikon cameras and some VR lenses, the 40D may have more problems with supplying power to the camera when an IS lens is attached.

A lot of the above is pure guess work and I do not see a single strong trend. I do recall that the Canon 20D had a similar history of sometimes throwing this same error, but only on some cameras, some of the time.

I have not had the problem on my copy of the 40D but, I use only Canon batteries, I don't have the optional grip and I haven't subjected the camera to a lot of use yet.

JDEORTA

Tha manager at the store tried all of that. He tried different lens, battery, card reseting the camera, nothing worked. I read on another forum where several people had the camera replaced becasue the couldn't correct the issue. Some of them had only taken a couple hundred pics and a had thousands of pics.

David_S85

JDEORTA wrote:

Does anyone know what causes the err 99 message?

What firmware are you running? Have you updated it recently?

JDEORTA

1.4 ,that sound right I bought the camera in Dec so I assume its the latest one.

WilliamClark77

That sucks. I know they're not really related but I bought a 400d not long after they came out. Within 100 shots I was constantly getting the "Error 99 of death" message. Before it was two weeks old it was utterly useless. None of the tricks I could find fixed it. Canon repaired it under warrantee. The sheet they sent back with it said they replaced the flash assembly. Apparently that was the problem because I still have that cam with over 10,200 clicks on it without an Error 99 since.

Now that I'm thinking about it they may have replaced the mirror assembly too. I can't remember but I'm positive the flash was.

Hopefully they'll get yours back in working order ASAP!

SloYerRoll

ziggy53 wrote:

In reading about this "error 99" problem on the 40D I am noticing several comment trends:

Lens connection dirty. Take off the lens and clean contacts on both lens and camera.

Battery contacts dirty. Clean contacts on battery and, if possible, inside the camera as well.

Battery loose in chamber. Insert something in the battery door to put more pressure on the bottom of the battery. A small piece of foam or cardboard seems to be common recommendations.

3rd party batteries. It appears that the Canon 40D is picky about some of the 3rd party batteries and may produce the error more often with some of the batteries.

Vertical grip. It appears that adding a grip can cause some cameras to loose connection more easily. It seems to happen with both Canon and 3rd party grips so it may be a loosening problem or just poor connection or a torque or twist problem or ...

IS lenses. It appears that, similar to some Nikon cameras and some VR lenses, the 40D may have more problems with supplying power to the camera when an IS lens is attached.

A lot of the above is pure guess work and I do not see a single strong trend. I do recall that the Canon 20D had a similar history of sometimes throwing this same error, but only on some cameras, some of the time.

I have not had the problem on my copy of the 40D but, I use only Canon batteries, I don't have the optional grip and I haven't subjected the camera to a lot of use yet.

W/ as "popular" as this error is Ziggy. I vote for your summary to go into the tutorials or help section here on the forums. There may as be one place to point people to at least to troubleshoot the easy stuff out of the way.

JMO

-Jon

ziggy53

SloYerRoll wrote:

W/ as "popular" as this error is Ziggy. I vote for your summary to go into the tutorials or help section here on the forums. There may as be one place to point people to at least to troubleshoot the easy stuff out of the way.

JMO

-Jon

If I can find verification that any of it is factual. All I found is anecdotal references in a Google search, much of it guesswork.

If anyone finds something conclusive we might start something for others to use as an easy reference.

jgoetz4

ziggy53 wrote:

If I can find verification that any of it is factual. All I found is anecdotal references in a Google search, much of it guesswork.

If anyone finds something conclusive we might start something for others to use as an easy reference.

Morning All,
I spoke with a Canon Tech about this error. His response was:
1) Clean the lens contacts
2) Remove the battery, wait at least 15 seconds and replace
3) Remove 3rd party accessories ( grip, flash, battery, etc)
4) Remove 3rd party lens and replace with Canon EF or EF-S lens
This works about 90% of the time. If you still have the error after trying these procedures, then it's time to send it in. It could be anything from a defective mirror assembly to an ic problem. If it's under warranty, it will be repaired. Hope this helps
Have a good day
Jim...

jeffreaux2

I got an "err 99" on my XTi a few weeks ago. This was my first. The camera probably has 10k to 15k shots on it. I was using a Canon 580 EXII flash with it, and a Canon EFS lens (17-55F2.8IS). I was shooting RAW+jpegL in continuous burst mode and AVSERVO focus mode. I had been shooting a series of photos of a girl walking toward me on a RR track. This was near the end of a senior portrait session. THe camera had given me the "BUSY" message a few times right before the incident as it was trying to clear the buffer of the images I was throwing in there. When it locked up(er 99) it wouldn't even turn off. Other than being on, the camera had zero functionality. I removed the battery and waited a few seconds. I placed the same battery back in the camera and finished my shoot. No problems after. I ALWAYS shoot RAW+jpegL. Not sure why it happened, but I have taken a few hundred photos since with no other issues.

My theory is that I was asking a bit much from the processor at once and in a hurry.

jgoetz4

jeffreaux2 wrote:

I got an "err 99" on my XTi a few weeks ago. This was my first. The camera probably has 10k to 15k shots on it. I was using a Canon 580 EXII flash with it, and a Canon EFS lens (17-55F2.8IS). I was shooting RAW+jpegL in continuous burst mode and AVSERVO focus mode. I had been shooting a series of photos of a girl walking toward me on a RR track. This was near the end of a senior portrait session. THe camera had given me the "BUSY" message a few times right before the incident as it was trying to clear the buffer of the images I was throwing in there. When it locked up(er 99) it wouldn't even turn off. Other than being on, the camera had zero functionality. I removed the battery and waited a few seconds. I placed the same battery back in the camera and finished my shoot. No problems after. I ALWAYS shoot RAW+jpegL. Not sure why it happened, but I have taken a few hundred photos since with no other issues.

My theory is that I was asking a bit much from the processor at once and in a hurry.

Good Afternoon Jeff ,
Are you using a standard or high speed cf card ? A lot of folks recommend a high speed card if you are using raw + jpeg L.
Have a good day
Jim...

jeffreaux2

jgoetz4 wrote:

Good Afternoon Jeff ,
Are you using a standard or high speed cf card ? A lot of folks recommend a high speed card if you are using raw + jpeg L.
Have a good day
Jim...

I use a variety of cards by Sandisk and PNY. This shouldn't be a huge contributor to the er99 as I have used these same cards under similar conditions many many times. I am not really nervous about the lock up. If it died tommorrow, I would have definately gotten my $$'s worth from the camera.

nightshadow

I agree with the idea of a bad connection between the lens and the camera. I have a 350 and a 400D. I saw this error in two circumstances. It seems to be the standard help me error. 1) computer wrote to a card and then the 350 couldn't read it. 2) also with the 350, EOS 2x with non-EOS lens.
Your mileage may vary, NS

evoryware

I had this error on the XTi when the pop up flash wouldn't pop up properly and when I drove it to Canon, they told me it was a common problem that can be created because the flash can lose alignment especially if you are putting "off camera flashes".

I can also say that the 40D battery grip BG-E2N unscrews itself a little too easy and my experience is the camera just turns off as if the battery died, no error message.

rglimmer

solution to err 99
I had a similar situation where out of the blues the camera started freezing up with the err99 message. A friend asked me to try upgrading my firmware to the 1.0.5 version and that took care of the problem immediately. Well worth the try before sending it back for service.

Martyn

I get the err 99 with the 40D and the 70-200 f4 IS USM, the only IS lens I have. Never had the issue with other lenses.

JDEORTA

Update:

This is what they said they did:
Repair bent card pin(s)
Replace shutter unit
ESP
Update Firmware
Clean Image sensor
Clean and checked to manufacturer's specifications
On my lens they Check auto focus operation, clean and check to manufacturer's specifications
ESP

ziggy53

I love a happy ending.

David_S85

ziggy53 wrote:

I love a happy ending.

+1. That's fantastic! Woot!

BigAl

JDEORTA wrote:

Repaired bent card pin(s)

Another one to add to your list above Ziggy