New firmware bad?

Just did a wedding shoot with the latest firmware on the pocket 4Ks and had two of them freeze during recording causing the camera to stop recording. What the hell?


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What were you recording and to what media, and how?

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I've been gathering instances of cameras freezing with 7.9 firmware. Take a look here and see if your symptoms matches ours. If so, please chime in to the thread so there's a central location developers can go to learn about this issue.

What were you recording and to what media, and how?

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(Still at the wedding so my responses may be delayed)

Was recording DCI 4K 60P Q5 via usb C to a Samsung T5 SSD. I’m open to the idea that it may have been bad cables, however both cameras froze around 15 minutes and froze in the same way where the time code stopped running, yet stayed red and was unresponsive to stop/start recording


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I was recording braw to T5 in bright sunlast summer, had a frame drop ending recording. I've never had a studio shot drop a frame and stop.

Went out again in bright sun and shot a bit, got a dropped frame and stop.

Then got the Wise SSD, tested. Even at full Q in braw, bright sun, no frame drop, no stopping.

All prior to the new firmware of course.

I think depending on the cord, the T5, and maybe even heat, there may be an issue.

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What were you recording and to what media, and how?

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(Still at the wedding so my responses may be delayed)

Was recording DCI 4K 60P Q5 via usb C to a Samsung T5 SSD. I’m open to the idea that it may have been bad cables, however both cameras froze around 15 minutes and froze in the same way where the time code stopped running, yet stayed red and was unresponsive to stop/start recording

Sounds like exactly like the problem a few of us reported. It's unlikely this will stop until you downgrade back to 7.7.3. Dropping resolution/framerate will not stop this. Since you're in the middle of a job, factory reset might help for a little bit. The recording will be cut short even when the timecode is running, but you will see the "time remaining" on the drive stops counting down. I'm sorry you're having to find out about this in the middle of a shoot.

While waiting for a response to the firmware, check the cables too. Some cables does not work well with the camera, especially those that came with the T5. Read here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=162387

Just wanted to thank all of you for the quick replies. I do believe this is a firmware issue, and will be downgrading my cameras ASAP.


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Regardless of the firmware version or Pocket camera model, there's a consistent variable to all of the forum threads on recording problems — the media always seems to be USB-C connected SSD.

While it's great to have external SSD recording as an option, if you're shooting something that you can't afford to lose, I'd stick to Cfast 2.0 cards from the official BMD list.

Change the cable. The included T5 cable is notoriously bad.

Regardless of the firmware version or Pocket camera model, there's a consistent variable to all of the forum threads on recording problems — the media always seems to be USB-C connected SSD.

While it's great to have external SSD recording as an option, if you're shooting something that you can't afford to lose, I'd stick to Cfast 2.0 cards from the official BMD list.

Thank you for the advice, but I’ve heard of people having this issue with CFast as well. My cameras were working fine before this update.

I could see one camera having a bad cable, but three different cameras within 3-4 hours of each other? I think the likelihood of that is extremely low

I’ve been posting in other topics but I thought I would add more info in case there is any confusion. This will be a long post as I will try to give as much information as I can.

I’ve been using the pocket cameras since they came out. I’ve been using the T5 SSD’s with https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07THFJ1J5?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_titlethese usb C cables since at least 2019 without issue.

I shoot a lot of wedding films and have been doing so with pocket cameras since 2019. We’ve been adding to our inventory over the past few years and now have 3 pocket 4Ks and a pocket 6K pro.

I’ve probably shot 20-30 wedding films alone with the pocket cameras with 1TB T5 SSDs without a single issue in terms of recording (the only issue I’ve had is keeping a stockpile of NPF and gold-mount batteries lol).

Last week I decided to upgrade to the latest firmware on all 4 of my cameras. I did notice that one camera in particular took a lot longer than the others to upgrade, not that I think that’s important.

The day before the wedding we formatted the drives as usual, we use a windows machine to dump the footage to the server so we formatted the drives to ex-fat like always.

Jump to the day of the wedding and everything was going smoothly. We got a lot of good B-Roll of the venue and of the bride and groom getting ready and didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary with the cameras, that is until we got to the ceremony.

For the ceremony we used 4 pocket cameras. We had one on the groom, one on the bride, one in the back of the room as a safety, and the pocket 6k pro on a gimbal. All of these cameras were recording to T5 SSDs with the aforementioned cable.

About 10 minutes in to the ceremony we had a disk write error on the groom’s angle (exclamation point over the the record button). I had the guy running it re-seat the usb C cable, but that didn’t seem to work. It still wouldn’t let us hit record so we restarted the camera and then it let us record as normal.

After the ceremony we noticed that the back angle and the groom’s angle would not stop recording, and the timecode seemed to be frozen in place. I was alarmed by this, so I put the cameras off to the side and left them on in the hopes that they were just finishing up the file. After leaving them on for 15 minutes with no change I decided to just shut them off. When I went to review the footage in the camera I noticed that they both stopped recording after about 15 minutes. I still have not reviewed footage on a computer so I do not know for sure the length of the clips.

Later in the night I was recording with my gimbal cam, the pocket 6K pro, and noticed that it had frozen after recording for 18 minutes. I had to restart the camera in order to get it to record again.

I’ve had no issues with these pocket cameras until I update the firmware. For whatever reason this recording issue seems to affect clips that are around 15 minutes long.

Oh, another variable that I just thought of is that we use tentacle sync Es on all of our cameras. I don’t believe this would make a difference, but I thought I would include it anyways. I should probably also mention that we usually record DCI 4K 60P at Q5

I’ve heard of people having this issue with CFast as well.

Any media can potentially fail, but looking through these threads on recording problems when people state what they were recording to, all I see is external SSD. And it makes sense that problems show up there in greater numbers since there are more points of failure — the drive, the cable, and the USB-C connections on either end. That's 4 variables that can each go wrong. With CFast, it's just the card and the slot. If doing paid work with these cameras, Cfast media is the safer bet. And the forum threads confirm it.

I’ve heard of people having this issue with CFast as well.

Any media can potentially fail, but looking through these threads on recording problems when people state what they were recording to, all I see is external SSD. And it makes sense that problems show up there in greater numbers since there are more points of failure — the drive, the cable, and the USB-C connections on either end. That's 4 variables that can each go wrong. With CFast, it's just the card and the slot. If doing paid work with these cameras, Cfast media is the safer bet. And the forum threads confirm it.

Hang on, it’s the camera failing remember. The camera freeze’s, the timecode remains running (which is very deceptive) and you can’t stop the recording. You need to power cycle the camera and your footage is lost. This is 100% a new phenomenon for 7.9.

But yeah just use Cfast! It’s a noble effort for BMD to support USBC, buts it’s a minefield, they should probably drop the concept.

Regardless of the speculations where the problem could be, I think BMD should review 7.9 for any possible issues and address them asap with a 7.10 before pursuing other features. Issues like this can make or break project, the filmmakers, and contracts.

It doesn’t appear to affect everyone. For those who are affected, perhaps it’s best to downgrade the firmware until there’s a new firmware update. The issue about sharpening may not be considered as serious as the issue of the camera freezing and media not being reliable especially relating to the Samsung T5 SSD.

So far, personally I can stay on 7.9. How do those folks who have had serious issues feel about rolling back? If possible I’d recommend replacing the T5.

So far, personally I can stay on 7.9. How do those folks who have had serious issues feel about rolling back? If possible I’d recommend replacing the T5.

I too can stay on 7.9 with the P6K. As I mentioned on another thread, I was testing the T5 for a project. I had drop issues at first with the original cable but after replacing the cable with a Kondor Blue, I am able to shoot 6K 50fps BRAW 12:1 for a straight 35 minutes without it having any issues on the P6K with the 7.9 firmware. I tested the T5 and the same Kondor Blue cable on the UMP G2 and it was fine. I wonder if this is happening to just the P4K and P6K Pro. Since I don’t have those cams, I’m unable to test and comment.

I had drop issues at first with the original cable but after replacing the cable with a Kondor Blue, I am able to shoot 6K 50fps BRAW 12:1 for a straight 35 minutes without it having any issues on the P6K with the 7.9 firmware. I tested the T5 and the same Kondor Blue cable on the UMP G2 and it was fine. I wonder if this is happening to just the P4K and P6K Pro. Since I don’t have those cams, I’m unable to test and comment.

Here is an account of a Broadcast G2 where this is happening. I've also replicated this issue with a Kondor Blue cable.

No problems with my 6k and T5 on 7.9. Shot a ~1 hour take with no issues. It was indoors and cool. Someone mentioned heat so I would look at that if multiple cams are crashing out during (presumably) hot conditions.

interestingly, this is extremely similar to a problem that happens on the Atem Pro ISO in rare instances. I have shot dozens and dozens of events with the Atem with no issues, but during one particularly long concert, the time code kept running, but the stop button failed to function, the Atem only recorded about 30 minutes of a 3 hour concert, despite the screen indicating otherwise.

Seeing as there are reports of the G2 doing similar things after the 7.8 update, where black magic design added live streaming to that camera. I am curious if the code that is causing the problem is perhaps a bit of code borrowed from the Atem? more of a thought to consider for the devs, but something that is very possible.

No problems with my 6k and T5 on 7.9. Shot a ~1 hour take with no issues. It was indoors and cool. Someone mentioned heat so I would look at that if multiple cams are crashing out during (presumably) hot conditions.

My cameras were indoors in a cool, air conditioned venue when they froze.

interestingly, this is extremely similar to a problem that happens on the Atem Pro ISO in rare instances. I have shot dozens and dozens of events with the Atem with no issues, but during one particularly long concert, the time code kept running, but the stop button failed to function, the Atem only recorded about 30 minutes of a 3 hour concert, despite the screen indicating otherwise.

Seeing as there are reports of the G2 doing similar things after the 7.8 update, where black magic design added live streaming to that camera. I am curious if the code that is causing the problem is perhaps a bit of code borrowed from the Atem? more of a thought to consider for the devs, but something that is very possible.

I should probably add that the timecode actually froze on my cameras. We didn’t catch it at the time because the timecode was still red, and one of them was on sticks not being monitored particularly close by anyone while the other one was being monitored remotely through wireless hdmi.

But that is interesting indeed

Rolling back to 7.73 seems to have fixed it for me on my 4k & T5 combo, been rolling for an hour now and stopped without issue.
I think tomorrow I’ll leave it rolling for several hours and see.
For anyone else testing this issue who hasn’t caught the telling signs yet, it’s when the drive capacity counter stops counting down that the issue has kicked in, your counters will keep rolling.
If the capacity counter stops decreasing by the minute then it’s happened so watch that not the timers.

Alright, after getting back to my shop and running some tests, and looking at the footage this issue is WAY weirder than I had anticipated.

Of the two cameras that stopped recording during the ceremony, the clips were the EXACT same length. The cameras were recording at different times due to the aforementioned drive write error.

The Green and Pink clips are the cameras that stopped recording. The orange clip is a camera that was recording the entire time (note these are aligned by timecode.)

clips .png (10.68 KiB) Viewed 5247 times

Aligning the Green and Pink clips together, you can see that they are the exact same length.

clip 2.png (9.71 KiB) Viewed 5247 times

Furthermore, I did some tests at my shop and was not able to recreate the issue. I was able to get a drive write error on the Green cam, but the timecode never froze, and the cameras recorded for over an hour otherwise without issue.

In my opinion, this is very bad as this issue could pop up anytime in the future since we do not know for sure what is causing it. The fact that the clips were the EXACT same length on separate cameras at different times would suggest that this issue is not random. Any thoughts on this issue would be appreciated as I am going to downgrade my cameras soon, and we will lose the ability to test any theories.

Joe, can you tell us the exact file size, compression, frame rate, and length of those two clips?
I’d like to know if this fits into the SLC cache of the drive.
Also which T5 drives exactly are you using?

Joe, can you tell us the exact file size, compression, frame rate, and length of those two clips?
I’d like to know if this fits into the SLC cache of the drive.
Also which T5 drives exactly are you using?

Both of them were recording BRAW Q5 @ DCI 4K 60P

Upon further inspection the lengths are slightly different
The green clip duration is 7M 13S 22F
Windows lists a filesize of 34.3GB
The pink clip duration is 7M 12S 31F
With a file size of 30.6GB

I don't know if this is important, but Davinci lists a codec bitrate of 551474880 for both of them.

Also, there is another clip that is 29.8GB on the pink drive that was recorded directly before. Unfortunately I do not know that clip length because the clip is corrupted and not readable. This must have happened when I got the initial drive write error.

Both drives are Samsing T5 1TB SSDs.

I'll add that when I was doing my testing today on the Green Camera I also got a write error, and a non-readable BRAW file. This file was only 20GB

One other thing I might mention. We had another pocket 4K with the latest firmware on it also recording to a T5 without issue the entire day. I believe it recorded an 80GB file during the ceremony.

After rolling back to 7.7.3 I ran a loooong recording test filling my 2TB Samsung T5 right up from empty recording 4K DCI 60fps it didn't have any issue whatsoever.
So sadly I'm going to have to stay on this version and not get to use the new Gyro data until an update fix is released.

One other thing I might mention. We had another pocket 4K with the latest firmware on it also recording to a T5 without issue the entire day. I believe it recorded an 80GB file during the ceremony.

Approximately when were the good and bad cameras and the various media purchased new? Just trying to see if there’s any relationship with the manufacturing of either. Any chance the media uses different firmware revisions? In the past a few years, we’ve had problems when a vendor updated the disk controller on their latest media; earlier media passed BMD’s rigorous verification but suddenly those drives with updated disk controllers failed everyone here. Could be déjà vu all over again!

Approximately when were the good and bad cameras and the various media purchased new?

My BMPCC 4K was manufactured April/May 2019. The brand new 2TB Samsung T5 (S/N S4B4NS0RA03688M) I tested on was made sometime this year. I've already registered the product so the Samsung website won't show the manufacture date anymore.

Anyone else is having an issue, when turning on the camera it doesn't turn on the SSD. The only way to make it work is after the camera turns on I have to plug in the SSD than it works its such a pain.

I don't like the way high frame rate setting are lost everytime you preview a recorded footage.

One other thing I might mention. We had another pocket 4K with the latest firmware on it also recording to a T5 without issue the entire day. I believe it recorded an 80GB file during the ceremony.

Approximately when were the good and bad cameras and the various media purchased new? Just trying to see if there’s any relationship with the manufacturing of either. Any chance the media uses different firmware revisions? In the past a few years, we’ve had problems when a vendor updated the disk controller on their latest media; earlier media passed BMD’s rigorous verification but suddenly those drives with updated disk controllers failed everyone here. Could be déjà vu all over again!

That’s interesting! Though unfortunately in my case the cameras/drives affected are a mix of old and new.

The green and pink cam (the cameras that froze during the ceremony) were purchased in 2018/19. The storage for the green cam was manufactured in April of 2018 and for the pink cam January of 2022.

The blue camera (which gave us no issues) I believe was purchased around 2020 and it’s drive was made in December of 2019.

The pocket 6k pro also gave us a lot of issues with freezing, and it was bought a about 6 months ago, and it’s media was manufactured in March of 2019.

There has to be something going on a deeper level in the firmware. I think at this point I’m just going to downgrade the firmware and stay there for the foreseeable future. There’s no point in risking more lost footage.

Between this issue and the record button always being red (man did that mess with me!) I really see no benefit to this firmware version.

I’m sure there’s going to be another update, but it may be awhile. I think falling back to 7.3 is sensible if one finds 7.9 isn’t working well for whatever reason. There may be more than one area that needs to be addressed.

The nice feature of 7.9 was the slider to adjust focus assist, but I use it at 50% if I’m careful and have time. On yesterday’s shoot I relied on my eye to judge focus on a magnified face and then turned on focus assist with a test chart at that position and verified it was very good. So we always find a way. I felt 7.3 was a superb achievement. Using the channel clipping indicators is superb compared to zebras.

Update just released:

Today we announced Blackmagic Camera 7.9.1 update for Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Cameras which includes improved reliability when recording in all formats to external USB-C media disks. In addition, this update improves the record button response which means you’ll be able to start and stop recording faster. Plus, there’s improved reliability when updating the camera software and it fixes an issue where Blackmagic RAW clips with a LUT applied may not preview correctly in camera.

This update also fixes an issue on the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K that prevented users from setting frame rates above 60 fps when shooting in the 4K 2.4:1 resolution. Frame rates up to 75 fps can now be selected allowing you to record smoother slow motion footage. Also, this update improves the accuracy of the motion sensor metadata recorded from the gyro sensor in the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K, improving the effectiveness of the stabilization feature in DaVinci Resolve 18.

Blackmagic Camera 7.9.1 update is available now as a free download from http://bmd.link/k3K7pL