Any idea what this is about? After last night being at 796 shots with 33% charge left, I noticed that my LCD battery indicator showed empty, even though the camera still works. The only thing I've done since then is manually cleaned the sensor...

Wow. Canon really has it out for you, Jeff. That sucks. I take it you've tried other batteries if you have them, or recharged this one?

Hasn't happened to me.

Yeah, I haven't heard of this one before. Breaking new ground...

I did pop it out and start to refresh my other battery before putting it in. Unfortunately I didn't think about simply pulling this battery out and putting it in again until after I'd stuck it on the charger, re-setting its counter. I popped it back in, and it read 41% with 0 shots taken.

Oddly, it was the other battery that had the initial 'drain' problem immediately after getting the camera. We'll see what that battery does now in the next few weeks (hopefully weeks!).

Something new! I have 2 LP-E4 and have not had any problem with them.

Check page 187 of your manual.

Hmm...

On page 187 of the manual:

"If for some reason, communication with the battery is not successful, the battery check display will show [no bars] on the top LCD panel and the viewfinder. When you check the battery info, [Cannot communicate with battery] will be displayed. However, shooting will still be possible."

Sounds like a known issue (to Canon anyway)...

Looks like I did at the same minute you did...

Of course the kicker is "if some reason..."

Like what reason? Oh well, maybe dirty contacts? Guess they leave the reason up to the user to determine.

I know what you mean, real helpful. It's a brand-new battery, first use of it. I don't remember drooling on the contacts...

The Battery chip (controler) is over and this should be covered by waranty

Does the manual also recommends how to cure this?

Happy shooting,
Yakim.

Gawd!!

Brand new? !!!

I love my MKII

I suggest a new bag, because you MUST have some kind of evil spirit living in your camera bag Jeff.

Looking at the battery, it doesn't look too easy to clean the contacts. Maybe try inserting and removing it several times with the camera power off would knock off whatever crud is on them.

I had a battery contact problem similar to this (without the cute little message on the display) and cleaned off the contacts with a little electronics cleaning pen and presto no more problem. And it never came back. Also used those little cleaning pens on two lens that had a contact issue and zippo, problem gone.

Charged the battery, re-inserted it, and it seems to work fine (of course). I guess I'll stick with using this battery and see if I can get it to happen again. Hopefully just an isolated occurrence, but the contacts are as 'clean as a whistle' (whatever that means; my kids' whistles are pretty nasty if you ask me ).

andrew81 wrote:
I love my MKII

I love my MKIII
Getting 3000+ clicks with every charge.

If it's a brand new battery it's possible it just had some crud on it from the factory which got knocked off after pulling the battery, charging, etc. If you feel iffy about it, why not just return the battery?

Actually, the battery is 'new' in that it came inside the new Blue Dot that I received in January. So, it's newer than my nearing-a-year-old battery that came in the lemon. Scary that it's been almost a year...

I recommend a counselling session between battery and body to try and reconcile their differences

All the best sorting it out though

That error message seems incredibly amusing, considering the camera is still on...

Reminds me of the error, "Keyboard not detected. Please press F1 to continue."

andrew81 wrote:
I love my MKII

Batteries, chargers and everything that has to do with the battery is not so good in your MKII.
The MKIII battery/charger is a huge improvement

dvarnav wrote:
The Battery chip (controler) is over and this should be covered by waranty

And may we know how you reached that conclusion?

-- V

That error message sounds like a Jack Nicholson movie line

By this time you must have come to realize that Canon is pulling this stuff just to piss you off.