I was shooting some B-roll for an upcoming wedding with my 7D today. The temperature wasn't bad so no overheating issues. I really didn't "push" the camera. Several times today when I hit the record button I saw an icon on the right side of the lcd screen and it kinda looked like a vertical battery meter. I think it had four stages that would light up from bottom to top and then the camera would stop recording. It was almost like some type of buffer. Once the camera stopped recording if I hit record again everything was fine. One time I got an error message screen that said something like this clip won't play or something like that. I haven't been able to find the icon, that appeared on the lcd, in the owner's manual. Any ideas? Cheers.

I am not sure of the correct technical terms, but I have seen that indicator frequently and assume that it is some kind of a buffer indicator. It usually shows up with slower cards. I have never seen it when using a San Disk Extreme III 8G 30mbs card, but I use a Kingston 133X 32G Elite Pro a lot and I see it frequently with it. If the indicator goes to the top for any period of time, it will stop recording, but this has only happened a few times with this card. Usually I just see the buffer indicator periodically and then it disappears and the camera keeps on recording.

I have tried some older cards with lower specs (I forget now exactly what they were) and with them the indicator would appear immediately with the bars going to the top and the camera either failing to go in record mode or only recording for a few seconds.

Bottom line is I think this is a card issue and not a problem with the camera itself.

It is the buffer. I had the same issue when using the Kingston 133x cards. I switched to the Transcend 400x cards and haven't had a problem since. It is not the camera. I had 3 Kingston 133x cards fail after about 6 months or so. I bought them because they were cheap and were supposed to be ok for video. I figured out pretty quickly that they don't work well for either video or stills.

Your camera is fine.

Daniel Weber

The card I was using at the time was a Sandisk Extreme 32gb 60MB/s UDMA. I noticed when I was testing it again last night that the buffer indicator would almost always show if (for example) I took a shot. Then I went to review the shot. When I went back into shooting mode and hit record, that is when I typically see it. Is that normal? Cheers.

Hi Robert, I've been using the 16GB versions of that Sandisk card for nearly 18 months in my 7D and have NEVER seen the buffer icon so in my opinion it's definitely not normal.

Maybe your card is showing symptoms of developing a fault? I'd reformat it and test it thoroughly before using on anything critical (as I'm sure you will anyway!) but I guess it depends how others get on with the identical 32GB card to the one you have. Yet another reason to have more smaller cards and not all your eggs in one basket with these large memory cards I guess :-(

There are also techniques where you can test the write and read speeds of cards (with your computer - I don't know the details off-hand). Might be worth a quick Google and try and see if it's performing at it's specified rate - if not contact Sandisk and get it replaced.

I was shooting some B-roll for an upcoming wedding with my 7D today. The temperature wasn't bad so no overheating issues. I really didn't "push" the camera. Several times today when I hit the record button I saw an icon on the right side of the lcd screen and it kinda looked like a vertical battery meter. I think it had four stages that would light up from bottom to top and then the camera would stop recording. It was almost like some type of buffer. Once the camera stopped recording if I hit record again everything was fine. One time I got an error message screen that said something like this clip won't play or something like that. I haven't been able to find the icon, that appeared on the lcd, in the owner's manual. Any ideas? Cheers.

I have posted a similar post a while back months ago but I think no one cared : (
You are not alone, i get the same problem . I was using sandisk 30mb/s then tried 60mb/s. they both yielded the same problem from time to time.

"like error #... please insert a card etc..."

then you will not be able to record that preivous clip, you will lose it.


the problem would likely to happen on 30mb/s than in 60mb/s. so try using 60mb/s.

my advice: use 7D as a broll and your 5D as main cam. 5d is more reliable than 7D from my experience.

cheets

The card I was using at the time was a Sandisk Extreme 32gb 60MB/s UDMA..
I use the same cards, and roughly once a month I get the same buffer problem on 7D, never on 5D or 1D,

Thanks everyone for your replies. I took my 7D out again today. This time I had three Sandisk 32gb 60MB/s UDMA cards with me. One is brand new. I tried shooting a few scenes and everything was fine. I then went to review the shots and that work fine as well. It's when I went back to shooting, after viewing a clip, that the buffer appears just about every time. A few times the camera actually stopped recording other times the buffer began to build but it kept on recording. This happened on all three cards. I'm going to be more careful about viewing a clip and going back to shooting too fast. I also realized that I have a much older version of the firmware. Should I upgrade to the latest version? Cheers

By chance, did you buy the cards on ebay? I just bought a couple of Sandisk Extreme Ultra 16gb cards and found out they were counterfeits. They worked fine when shooting stills, but couldn't handle the data for video. According to things I found online, 80% to 90% of cards on ebay are counterfeits, especially Sandisk. Fortunately, I got my money back. Now I stick to purchasing from reputable dealers.

Michael, I literally purchased all three cards when I visited B&H in New York. I've heard about the "fake" cards that some people have purchased. Terrible.

I was quite surprised about the counterfeits. I order everything from B&H now. I have a couple of Kingston 16gb 133x cards, and they work just fine for video. The only time I've gotten the data buffer warning was when I tried to use a compact flash adapter card with a SDHC card in it. It wouldn't work for more than 2 seconds. So much for that idea.

The card I was using at the time was a Sandisk Extreme 32gb 60MB/s UDMA. I noticed when I was testing it again last night that the buffer indicator would almost always show if (for example) I took a shot. Then I went to review the shot. When I went back into shooting mode and hit record, that is when I typically see it. Is that normal? Cheers.

You need to download and install the latest firmware update for the 7D. The problem you are having seems to be addressed in this "fix".

I never had the problem but all I have for the 7D are 3 8GB SanDisk media. Two are 45MB/s and one is 60MB/s (all three are UDMA). So even if my 7D was "vulnerable" to this I never tried to use 16GB or 32GB media. But I downoaded the latest firmware (1.2.5) and updated anyway.

Here is the link:

Canon U.S.A. : Support & Drivers : EOS 7D (http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/support/consumer/eos_slr_camera_systems/eos_digital_slr_cameras/eos_7d#DriversAndSoftware)

You have to select your OS and go from there.

I got these babies and they work nicely so far at 3 weddings.

Amazon.com: Used and New: Duracell High Speed 32 GB 600X USB 2.0 Compact Flash Card Card UDMA DU-CF6032G-C