Foolography Community

   
(I sent this problem by e-mail on 2023-11-05, but I received no response. Therefore, I now submit the problem here.)

Camera: Sony a7 iii (ILCE-7M3), old-style menu system
Phone/OS: Samsung / Android
Unleashed serial number: 011562
App version: 3.0.3
Firmware: A3.0.2, B3.0.2, C3.0.0

When I trigger the camera by pressing the release button on the camera, I can easily take two photographs per second. Even more, but two per second is easily achievable by continuously single-pressing the release button on the camera by hand.

However, if I use the Unleashed app, the camera is completely unresponsive after triggering the camera from my phone. This lasts for about twelve seconds - which is quite a long time.

During these twelve seconds, the little red light in the right-hand bottom of the camera's back panel, which indicates activity on the memory card, lights up continuously. As long as the light is on, I cannot do anything with the app, and I cannot do anything on the camera either.

When the red light dims, I can trigger the camera again from the phone. But now the Unleashed seems to reset itself. So if I trigger the camera from the phone, it takes about three seconds before the photograph is taken, and then I have to wait for another twelve seconds again before I can do anything with either the app or the camera.

Is there any setting in the camera or in the app which I should change in order to solve this problem?

Kind regards,

Erick
   

Hi,

I thought I had responded to everyone with this Sony issue, sorry if I missed your email

We fixed this issue in a firmware update a while ago. The current version is 3.1.2

Please update your firmware. Whenever there's a Firmware update available, you'll see a red notification badge on the menu icon in the bottom left corner of the app. Follow this notification badge through the app to get to the firmware update screen.
App menu (bottom left) → Unleashed with gear icon (bottom left) → tap on your Unleashed (near top ) → tap "Firmware"
Scroll down and tap "Install Update". With the Unleashed M, you need to keep the camera awake, so that the Unleashed stays powered during the entire update. To keep the camera from entering standby, half-press the cameras's shutterbutton continuously or regularly until the update is done. This only takes a little over a minute.

I hope this helps!

Oh, and one more thing:

Shooting in just RAW is a problem on these cameras, and it sounds like you're doing just that. We found a bug in Sony's firmware that doesn't let us tell the camera that we're done with a Raw file, so it remains in the buffer forever, and will lock up the camera. The only workaround we found was to disable USB entirely and restart it after a while. which as you noticed, results in a pretty long delay. This can range from 3-15 seconds! So yeah, we don't recommend doing that!

We updated our getting started page with our recommendations (the first and last item are the solution to your problem)
https://www.foolography.com/start/

Set the file format to RAW+JPEG (or just JPEG), There are significant disadvantages with just RAW
Set the camera setting: MENU > Setup4 > USB Connection = PC Remote
Set the camera setting: MENU > Setup4 > USB Remote Settings > Still Img. Save Dest. = PC+Camera
Set the camera setting: MENU > Setup4 > USB Remote Settings > RAW+J PC Save Img = JPEG Only

Hi Oliver,

Thanks for your explanation.

I updated the firmware of the Unleashed, and I changed the last setting you mentioned from RAW+JPEG to JPEG Only.

The bug still exists. The only difference is that the unresponsiveness time is now 8 seconds instead of 12.

I already tried to change the JPG setting from large-ultrafine to the smallest possible settings, but that only increased the unresponssiveness time.

What else can I do?

Kind regards,
Erick

Please double check this setting:
and I changed the last setting you mentioned from RAW+JPEG to JPEG Only.
it's only settable when image quality is already set to RAW+JPEG, so if you had the camera on just raw or just jpg before, then this setting might have been changed by that again.

These 8s unresponsiveness are our workaround when the Unleashed has to deal with a RAW image!

Hi Oliver,

The settings was indeed reset to RAW+JPEG. I changed it to JPEG Only.

Now the problem is worse.

When I trigger the camera from the phone, the photo is taken, but then the camera remains unresponsive for many seconds. Same as before. But now, the camera displays an error message:
"Writing to the memory card was not completed correctly. Recover data? Slot 1".
After I recover the data, the Unleashed resets twice, and the app loses connection to the Unleashed. I have to close the app and restart it in order to restore the connection.

I formatted the memory card, but the result remains the same.

What else can I do?

Kind regards,
Erick

I'm gonna ask for a refund. I will send an email this weekend. This time, please do respond.

I did a complete reset of my camera to factory settings.

Then I carefully followed the steps on your Getting Started page.

My camera has the latest firmware version.
My Unleashed has the latest firmware versions.
My app is on the latest version.

Still, the Unleashed is unusable. Sometimes, the camera's memory card becomes corrupted. Other times, the camera becomes completely unresponsive. Often, the Unleashed resets, which takes a long time.

Enough reasons for a refund, I think.

I will mail you. Please do not leave my mail unanswered, as you did the last two times I mailed you.

Erick

Please see my answer in your other thread:

viewtopic.php?p=5470#p5470