My BMPCC bricked during a firmware update

Here's my sob story:

Ordered a BMPCC months ago. Had it delivered in September 2013... but was traveling the whole time and never got my hands on it.

Finally get home after some horrible flight delays, sleeping in airports for 10 hours at a time etc etc. Airline lost my baggage with 80% my lenses, shoulder rig, and tripod inside.

Unwrap the BMPCC at 4AM. Download the latest 1.5.1 software and install. Reboot computer. Plug in the BMPCC to the outlet, USB to the computer. The camera is so new the plastic is still on it...

Start downloading the update:

"Software Update Failed. Please power cycle your device and try again."

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Tried removing the battery and powering up. Holding down power. Holding down power and REC for 10 seconds... etc etc etc. No button combinations seem to work. The camera is just bricked, won't turn on, not detected by the computer when plugged into USB.

Is there some way to do a hard reset of this camera - some magical button combo - that doesn't involve sending it cross-country to California? Is life still worth living?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Adam gave this suggestion in a previous post. You can search the forum for "BMPCC Bricked"



adamroberts
Posts: 2113
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2012 5:27 am
Location: London
Re: Update BMPCC and it won't for on again!
Tue Nov 12, 2013 11:03 am

rachinski wrote:
Please help, it just died!
is there any kind of recovery mode??!


Is the battery fully charged?

Try this:
Make sure the battery is fully charged. Connect the supplied power supply.
Connect the USB cable to your computer.
Launch the Camera Utility.
If it says "Connect Blackmagic Camera via USB" try pressing the power button on the camera.
Adam Roberts
http://www.adamroberts.net
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rachinski
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 2:33 am
Re: Update BMPCC and it won't for on again!
Tue Nov 12, 2013 11:04 am

just made it work. I plugged the camera on the mac, run the camera utility, and tried lots of button combinations, one of them was the power and rec buttons together. Then the software recognized the camera ( that would't turn on at any cost ). It reinstalled the firmware and it's working!!!!

Thanks for your reply but that was the first thread I saw and the first thing I tried.

Only thing is, how do I know if the battery is fully charged? I don't have a charger for this model of battery. Just keep it in camera with the AC adapter?

The battery should charge in the camera, irrespective of whether the camera works or not. Try leaving it on charge for about an hour, then try to get the camera going again, but leave the external charger/power supply connected while doing the update.

Still no luck. Tried starting it while connected to external power, didn't work. Tried again while connected to external power AND to USB with the utility software running, still no go. : (

Just a note...I had the same or similar experience.
When I updated to firmware 1.5 no problem, all went well.
When I initiated the update to 1.5.1 it crashed (immediately) when I started the update.
Nothing but black after that.

I tried everything, new fully charged batteries (I had purchased the Nikon charger).
All combinations of magic buttons (Support told me that does not work with the pocket).
Tried the AC power supply, changed the lens (yeah, I know but like I said, I tried Everything).
Forgot to do the, close one eye, stick my tongue out, hop on one foot and repeat the incantation 3 times . . .

Sent it to repair at Fremont, CA.
UPS took 11 days via ground to get it there.
The good folks at support turned it around in 3 or 4 days.
Said it needed to complete a couple more steps?

Anyhow, was disappointed to have to send it off with only 1-2 hours use on it but hard to complain given the level of support from BM.

I feel your pain.
Maybe if you try the one eye thing you'll have better luck?
Either way, Best.

Ahhh well thanks for everyone's replies.

Amazingly, I actually un-bricked my BMPCC.

Here's how:

I unplugged in my fully charged BMPCC to the computer and opened up the camera utility but it wasn't detecting anything.

While the camera was plugged in to the outlet, I took out the battery.

Then I pressed "menu"... and the camera utility had a pop-up message, "Please power on your camera!"

I then hit "power" (didn't hold power, just pressed it normally) and the computer recognized the camera and allowed me to update the firmware.

What a miracle.

Unfortunately, after recording a few clips, it seems that my camera has the dreaded "crickets" audio problem during recording that several people have reported.

I assume there's no firmware fix to THIS problem?

Yep, my BMPCC died aswell when trying to update to 1.9.3. My worst nightmare came true as I really hate updating stuff that are actually working. This latest update was however to good to pass up so I got lured in.

After having gone through the moaning like a little girl part I tried desperately to wake the little sumbitch to life. I tried everything listed in this forum with button combinations and stuff and - nothing. There is just no logical solution, as often the case with electronic crap. After an hour of trying and trying I got the updating going again with the random situation of: Battery being removed, AC being plugged in, connected to my PC (Windows), BM Utility running, randomly hitting power and menu buttons. First the Utility pop up window changed from "connect USB" to "Turn on power on BMPCC" (or something like that). I then held the power button while clicking on "OK" (or something) to start the update again, as another pop up showed up urging me to chose update.

What I'm trying to say is, wipe your tears and keep trying. There is NO logic. Just be sure to hit that update "OK" before it disappears. I think I missed it once during this ordeal. Good luck!

I updated to 1.9.3 and thought I bricked it too but managed to Google that it now powers on with a quick press rather than pressing and holding previously.

I just wanted to share that having downloaded the current latest Blackmagic Camera Setup Windows 8.5.1 in 2024 to update an old never updated BMPCC OG I got for a bargain on ebay, the s/w got to about 2% and then disconnected from the camera and the camera was dead. No idea what went wrong or why.

I also can't say exactly how I recovered it either other than randomly pressing all the buttons on the camera for some minutes. Suddenly on Windows I heard the familiar chime of a new USB device connected to the computer and the already running BM camera update tool identified my camera.

I only had 5 or so seconds to press the update camera button in the s/w. The first time I was too slow and it went back to the msg about not detecting anything.