I had a similar update issue last year on my A7R - camera totally froze. I had everything ready to send it in for repair, when I decided to turn every possible knob on the camera out of desperation while the frozen camera was powered on. Somehow this triggered something (I believe the mode knob made a difference here by turning back and forward), and the camera started up again and worked fine. The next updates worked without any issues including 3.1.
Luckily I tried the firmware update again and somehow it resumed from where it was (even though i closed the firmware update application) and this time the update completed and all is ok now.
Why are Sony firmware updates so risky, unreliable and cumbersome? You should be able to simply copy the firmware update to an SD card and load it directly on the camera. Others seem to have figured this out so what's the deal?
As an aside, yours is a great example why people shouldn't assume their camera, phone, device was bricked by am update. There's often something that can be done. Glad it worked out for you!
And in another thread someone asked me why I didn't plan to update my A7rII to v3.1 unless I buy a GM lens (which is essentially what this update was for), and questioned my nostalgia for a nice, easy Fuji firmware update.
Firmware via computer is a bad idea for a lot of reasons!
Tariq Gibran wrote:
Why are Sony firmware updates so risky, unreliable and cumbersome? You should be able to simply copy the firmware update to an SD card and load it directly on the camera. Others seem to have figured this out so what's the deal?
+1. I am still surprised that it wasn't changed in the meantime. The step-by-step procedure is still the same as for the first firmware update 2 years ago. I can only explain it with a lack of Sony resources to improve the software in general and the firmware update process.
p.1 #10 · 3.1 firmware update just killed my a6000
As risky and flaky as their updates seem to be, don't give up, in most cases of failed updates I've had or come across on the net, they have all been able to complete the update if they continued trying.
