GL2 Remove Cassette Error Fix

[Jimmy McKenzie]

Home camcorder repair falls into the same category as home dentistry: You can learn about it but practically do nothing about it. For the pedestrian home user who runs 5 -10 tapes per year through their camera per year and is faced with a trip to Canon service after 5 years, this is part of the ownership experience.
For commercial users, what do you expect when you are wearing out delicate moving parts on a daily basis???
You are running a business and this is a maintenance expense. A NYC cabbie needs brakes every 6 weeks! Unless he is a licensed technician, it's illegal for him/her to make the fix!
I could paint several analogies here, but you get the point.
Replace the drum.
Canon does this with trained technicians.
No I'm not staff or a shareholder or a flagwaver for Canon. It's just a simple business rule that you keep your revenue producing tools working and get the maintenance done routinely to avoid costly downtime.
It's like the guy at the chewing gum factory and when the reciprocating drum star ........

[Alan Craven]

I have a rewind problem with my XM1 (GL1), but do not get any Eject Tape error message. The tape simply,fails to rewind at full speed and the timecode counter loses track of the tape position as it rewinds. I have never yet had a tape fail to rewind fully - it just takes its time.

All other functions of the camera appear to operate normally. Fortunately I rarely need to use it as a recorder and so do not need to rewind tapes in the camera. I have only ever used Panasonic DVM63 tapes.

[Darko Flajpan]

Thanks Cosmin for this info. Unfortunately, my camera is already at Canon service center....grrr...I've would definitely try your trick. Anyway I'm hoping not to get any more CASETTE messages for some time...

[Cosmin Rotaru]

Jimmy, yes I do run more than 10 tapes/year, true. Canon service should do a better job than I did, I said that.

Unfortunately, I had a bad experience with the local canon service (local means 700km away, btw). They would keep the camcorder at least a month in service (is what they told me) and I cannot afford that. I do not own a back-up camcorder.

"Home camcorder repair falls into the same category as home dentistry"
Well, I do not go to the dentist to wash my teeth! :)

And this all topic started with this premise:

" I am usually the do-it-yourself type, and would rather find a way to fix my cam than have it gone for a week or shell out > $250.
.............
Let's collect knowledge about the problem and see if there is a way for us to crack open our cams and fix 'em for free!" - Harper Abbot

[Jimmy McKenzie]

Originally Posted by Cosmin Rotaru

Jimmy, yes I do run more than 10 tapes/year, true. Canon service should do a better job than I did, I said that.

Unfortunately, I had a bad experience with the local canon service (local means 700km away, btw). They would keep the camcorder at least a month in service (is what they told me) and I cannot afford that. I do not own a back-up camcorder.

"Home camcorder repair falls into the same category as home dentistry"
Well, I do not go to the dentist to wash my teeth! :)

And this all topic started with this premise:

" I am usually the do-it-yourself type, and would rather find a way to fix my cam than have it gone for a week or shell out > $250.
.............
Let's collect knowledge about the problem and see if there is a way for us to crack open our cams and fix 'em for free!" - Harper Abbot

Not ever meaning to rain on your parade ... you are right ... just as you would clean your teeth at home so should you clean the heads on the camera at home. Beyond that, I feel that professional intervention is most times the best cure.

[Ben Bixby]

the only time i have ever had this happen on my GL2 is when i use my head cleaner cassette and it comes to the end of the tape, it stops, and says to remove it.

[Sam Post]

I've been having a bad time with 'Remove Cassette.' Had it serviced and the message returned immediately. I was able to shoot a short, but can't rewind or playback. I tried cleaning; this didn't help. I'm sending it back again today for service.

When it returns, I'm wondering if I should switch tape brands. I've always, only, used Maxell.

[Alex Beaupre]

I know it is a little late to be responding to this, but incase anyone is interested I have had my GL2 for almost 2 years now and have never had the "Remove Casset" problem (knock on wood). It has been well taken care of but that doesn't mean that it hasn't been used to play back a lot of tapes. I have only used panasonic tapes in my GL2. Hope this helps a bit.

Alex B.

[Charles J. DuBois]

I've owned a GL-2 for about 18 Months (I really love it), about a month ago I started getting the "eject cassette" problem on the play side but eventually it would play. I started searching the GL-2 user forums and found out that it's a fairly common problem. I read all the horror stories (it was depressing). I'm the videographer for a local stock car racing track and last saturday night I got the message while recording and it hasn't recorded since. I called a local camera store that is a certified Canon repair center. They said that they would'nt be able to look at it for as least 4 weeks and it would cost approx $400.00 (gasp), so I decided to call Canon. I explained my problem and told them from what I had learned from the web, that it's a fairly common problem, and I asked if Canon had done anything to remedy the problem. The rep told me that Canon was aware of it and if I sent my GL-2 in they would repair it at a "reduce repair rate" of $50.00 with a turnaround of 7 to 10 days. So wish me luck, I Fedexed it out to their Jamesburg NJ service center, maybe there is a happy ending.

Chuck

[Eugene Pesochin]

"A NYC cabbie needs brakes every 6 weeks! Unless he is a licensed technician, it's illegal for him/her to make the fix!"


I live in NYC and never heard of this law. I know some taxi drivers and know for fact that they sometimes fix their rigs themselves.
If you have a business then most likely you have more than one camera and for you fixing one or another camera once in the while is not extraordinary problem. Most of us are do not have a luxury to own more than one camcorder of this kind, and we rather spent this $300-$400 on good mice, light, tripod etc.

I own GL-2 for couple years now, I am light user (about 60 tapes so far) but i'd like to monitor and see all of my options if and when I will hit this problem.

P.S. 59 of those tapes are FUJI, and 1 was Panasonic 80 min. I use a rewinder for last 30 or so tapes.

[Jimmy McKenzie]

You understand the parallel ... the analogy still stands.

[Debbie Curran]

Okay, I've read the boards and I have a variation on the problem. I have a Canon GL1 and have always used Sony Premium Tapes. It has already been sent in for repair on the tape rewinding and now I have a new problem.

I recorded 2 hours of video the other day and after returning home, I reinserted the tapes and rewound them. I then got the dreaded Remove Cassette Tape message after both rewinds. Figuring that was natural, when I tried to play them back it still had the Remove Cassette Tape message. I took the tapes out and replaced them, still to no avail and the same message appeared. I powered the camera down, removed the battery, installed the battery again, turned the camera back on, inserted the tape and of course the Remove message reappeared.

I took the tapes to a camera store that does editing and they were able to get one of the tapes to come up, but not the other. When I took the tapes back home, sure enough, I was able to play one but not the other.

Is everything lost on the one tape? Is there any kind of way to retrieve the data off of the tape or anyone that specializes in this? I really wanted to bring this stuff into Premiere and do some editing with it. HELP!

[Dale Guthormsen]

I wonder if using the rewind machines, that are supposed to help save your camera life do not wind it to tight or such and then the camera is under strain???


how about you people who use these machines?


Dale guthormsen

[David Crompton]

I have one of the first GL2's sold in Canada and I have just run into this problem this week so that's coming up on three years. I wasn't even aware of it until now so I've got some back reading to do...

[Colin Rayner]

I have just spent a week using the new XL2, what a great camera that has turned out to be with the 20x zoom lens and XLR inputs. If my xm2 gets the tape eject message again I will be tempted to bit the bullet and step up to the XL2. But I wonder if they have similar problems? The tape carriage mechanism must be virtually the same.