D500 shutter-release button intermittently sticks—possible to repair at home?

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Over the past week or so, the shutter-release button on my D500 has been intermittently failing to respond. I press repeatedly, nothing happens, and then finally it resumes working. I thought that my winter gloves might be pushing the on/off switch, but that doesn't seem to be the issue. Any ideas on whether this is something I can fix? I found this suggestion online, but am leery of spraying oil into the body: https://www.instructables.com/How-to-fix-Press-Shutter-Release-Button-Again-er/ (I've never seen a "press shutter release button again" message in the viewfinder, but I haven't checked the monitor on the back when it happens.)
 
Two thoughts. First, I do not have the stomach or patience to be taking a camera body apart. IMHO, it is one of those things that you either know you know what you are doing, or not. Second, did you try to use a blower to see if there is something that got under the shutter button, like a stand of fiber from your glove? This will hurt nothing and rule that out. And one more thing, are both the LV button and any grip controls possibly not set to their correct position? I suspect that none of these things are the cause, but at least you have ruled them out. Kind of like rebooting a PC to see if that solves the problem. If it is still there, at least you can focus on other possible issues knowing that you ruled out the small stuff.

Good luck,

--Ken
 
Two thoughts. First, I do not have the stomach or patience to be taking a camera body apart. IMHO, it is one of those things that you either know you know what you are doing, or not. Second, did you try to use a blower to see if there is something that got under the shutter button, like a stand of fiber from your glove? This will hurt nothing and rule that out. And one more thing, are both the LV button and any grip controls possibly not set to their correct position? I suspect that none of these things are the cause, but at least you have ruled them out. Kind of like rebooting a PC to see if that solves the problem. If it is still there, at least you can focus on other possible issues knowing that you ruled out the small stuff.

Good luck,

--Ken
Thanks for the suggestions, Ken. I'll give those a try. I'm all for easy troubleshooting!
 
Under A1/A2 is priority set to FOCUS? The camera will ignore a shutter press if it thinks you aren't in focus. I keep both of those set to RELEASE as I hate it when the camera puts a caring hand on my shoulder and says 'I don't think you want to take that shot right now'.
 
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Linda,
Please do not take this as an insult because it sure isn't meant that way.

I had a similar problem, or at least I thought it was. What had happened was I had accidentally set my drive mode dial to timer. Duh..... I have no idea how it happened but I would press the shutter button and nothing would happen I would then press a few more times and then click. Hmm, strange. Believe it or not, I went for a few hours before it dawned on me what was going on.
Is it possible somehow your drive mode dial is getting bumped or is maybe half way between 2 settings?

Just a thought.
Jeff
 
@jeffnles1 No danger of my taking offense. I appreciate everyone's time trying to figure out what's going on. The drive mode dial is squarely locked on the CH (continuous high), so no luck with it being between settings.

@zemlin and @Charles Loy—Focus is set to release. I don't have a power grip to test out.
 
@jeffnles1 No danger of my taking offense. I appreciate everyone's time trying to figure out what's going on. The drive mode dial is squarely locked on the CH (continuous high), so no luck with it being between settings.

@zemlin and @Charles Loy—Focus is set to release. I don't have a power grip to test out.
Thanks Linda. Hope you get it figured out. The idea about compressed air blowing around the button to see if some gunk had worked its way in there may be worthwhile. If you don't have a compressor you can get a can of compressed air at any electronics store like Best Buy in the computer department for a couple bucks. Just don't use the canned air to blow out the inside of the camera as it can spit some oil out and that would be a mess to get off of your sensor or mirror. An air compressor is just too powerful and don't go there either. Again, you probably already know this. Just would really feel bad if I read a post in a few days about damage from the compressed air.

Hope you have a great rest of your day and get the camera straightened out quickly.
Jeff
 
@Linda, did You find a solution to your problem? I was out this morning with my D500 and the shutter release did not work, luckily I had a second camera with me. When I got home i tried with a remote MC- 36 but still no luck.
 
I would try electronics contact cleaner as this is going to evaporate quickly. I would suspect that something is being transferred by your fingers to the button and preventing its full motion.
 
@Linda, did You find a solution to your problem? I was out this morning with my D500 and the shutter release did not work, luckily I had a second camera with me. When I got home i tried with a remote MC- 36 but still no luck.
If neither the shutter button, nor the MC-36 remote will release the shutter it's likely some kind of firmware hangup and not the actual button assembly as Linda had posted.

I'd double check settings in the menu like Release Priority to see if your camera is limited to Focus Priority which can inhibit shutter release if the camera's AF system does not think it has achieved proper focus.

Assuming it's not something simple like that I'd pull and re-insert the battery and power cycle the camera to see if that helps. If not then I'd probably save or at least write down any custom menu settings and do a full factory reset to see if that resolves things.

A sticky button like Linda reported might possibly be resolved with careful cleaning but I've had sticky and non responsive camera buttons on high shutter count cameras that just needed to be replaced by Nikon Service and after that they worked fine.

[edit] I'd add that you might swap in a different memory card as sometimes card write errors can lock up a camera.
 
Hi!

Yep, settings it was.
I did the battery removal when I was out there but no help. Removed and reinserted the memory cards as well.
Now this morning I format:ed the memory card.

The problem was that I was in AF-S(Usually use AF-C), and focus priority was set in the settings. The low light, snowy backdrop and -16°C did not help.

Thank You for the help.
 
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