Strange Z8 behavior

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eaj101

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My Z8 has taken up the habit, usually at the end of at least a few hours of shooting, of saying 'Unable to write to card, please replace card with another.'

What makes it strange is that I can then put the card into my Z9 and it will work fine, and when I put the card in the reader on the computer all of my images are there. And if I turn the Z8 off and on, or pop the battery out, it usually works fine as well! For at least a while. And the next morning it all usually works fine for most of the day... But *may* fail again. I have gotten the same results with five different CFE cards form five different suppliers. Once I removed the 'failed' card from the Z8 and put it in the Z9 and got the same failure message! Which then went away when I cycled power. But only once.

Obviously there's something wrong somewhere and the Z8 will probably have to go back to Nikon, but the intermittent nature of the problem is baffling and it's going to be hard to fix a problem which usually isn't there and can't reliably be reproduced.

Any insights?
 
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I have never had this on my Z8, but I use SD cards. I also format card in camera before every shoot (assuming I have downloaded the exisiting shots to my computer). If you never format your cards then I have heard they can be problematic.
 
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eaj101 said:
Obviously there's something wrong somewhere and the Z8 will probably have to go back to Nikon, but the intermittent nature of the problem is baffling and it's going to be hard to fix a problem which usually isn't there and can't reliably be reproduced.

Any insights?
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Try another card in the camera to see if the problem happens again. If so, it’s likely a problem with camera.

If the problem doesn’t recur, I’d suspect a problem with the original card. I’d do a full reformat in camera before using it again. If the problem recurs it’s almost certainly a defective card.
 
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JAJohnson said:
Try another card in the camera to see if the problem happens again. If so, it’s likely a problem with camera.

If the problem doesn’t recur, I’d suspect a problem with the original card. I’d do a full reformat in camera before using it again. If the problem recurs it’s almost certainly a defective card.
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It's done this one at least three different cards. But it sometimes goes for a few days without doing it at all. I've reformatted several times as well. What really surprised me was that when I moved one of the failing cards to the Z9 it failed there, but only once. I'll try some different cards as well, I guess.

I know this isn't a repair group, but the behavior is so odd I wondered if others had seen anything similar.
 
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eaj101 said:
It's done this one at least three different cards. But it sometimes goes for a few days without doing it at all. I've reformatted several times as well. What really surprised me was that when I moved one of the failing cards to the Z9 it failed there, but only once. I'll try some different cards as well, I guess.

I know this isn't a repair group, but the behavior is so odd I wondered if others had seen anything similar.
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It it failed on two cameras it seems to me this card is defective. The fact that three different cards failed on your Z8 might mean that the Z8 is corrupting the cards. Best to have it checked by Nikon.
 
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Make sure you try “Full Format” and at least one new card. Is this also happening when writing to an SD card? If not, then it would point to either your CFExpress card or card slot. Any chance there is some dirt in the CFE slot?
 
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Jerry Heitschmidt said:
Make sure you try “Full Format” and at least one new card. Is this also happening when writing to an SD card? If not, then it would point to either your CFExpress card or card slot. Any chance there is some dirt in the CFE slot?
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Possible. On one of the failures I switched the camera to writing to the SD card slot, which it then complained it couldn't write to. Cycled power and it wrote fine. Back home now, three days running with no failures. Temperature related?
 
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I agree with the format-in-camera advice as I do that before EVERY use. I am GUESSING there is a heat issue but really don't have enough information to back my opinion up. I don't normally 'beat on' my Z8 as, for sports, I use my Z9 taking several thousand images per event due to the speeds. Best of luck.
 
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Before you send your gear back to Nikon & or call their Tech Support, take your card, place it in the Z-8 & do a Full Format (not a quick format) of the card....Power off the Z-8, turn it back on & take some sample shots.....If everything is OK, power down the Z-8, remove your card & place in the Z-9 & try taking pictures....My gut tells me that the Z-series software/firmware is "smart" enough to read the BIN files etc & recognize the card was not formatted in the camera.. Lastly, have you tried a different card. Do an Apples to Apples comparison, same size, same vendor, same download/upload speeds
 
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