R5 - Shutter Randomly opening and closing while turned off

[david.holmes]

I have a brand new R5, this is the first bit of Canon gear I've ever used. I am waiting on lenses to arrive later today. So far I've just gone through the menus, but I haven't actually pressed the shutter yet.

The body is sitting on my desk, with the switch in the off position, and I hear the shutter opening and closing, completely unprovoked. It seems like the shutter remains open for 12 or so seconds.

Here is the vide of it happening:

Watch videoplayback | Streamable

Watch "videoplayback" on Streamable.

streamable.com

Does anyone have any idea what this is about?

 

[YuengLinger]

Ghosts? Hackers?

Battery contacts or door? Make sure the door is properly closing, and that there is no gunk on the battery or the contacts within the compartment.

Unfortunately, if you don't have any other Canon bodies, you can't take the troubleshooting step of trying the R5's included battery in another body, or even trying an older battery in the R5...

Some loose cable within? Some kind of crazy loop with a sensor cleaning cycle?

Wild guesses, of course. I've never left mine on my desk with no lens...

 

[david.holmes]

The battery door is closed and the contacts look good, no gunk anywhere. I only have this one Canon camera so I cannot test the battery in another camera, and I don't have any other batteries so I can't test other batteries in this camera. This is the battery that came with the camera.

I have no way of verifying if there is a loose cable within, I've seen camera tear downs, that is not my area of expertise.

And again, this is a brand new camera purchased from Canon's usa website, it was delivered last week and arrived with the 1.20 firmware. And the battery was fully charged at the time of that recording using the stock charger from the box.

 

[YuengLinger]

Even after removing and replacing the battery, still happens?

Even my R, without IBIS, does make a shutter-clicking sound when I replace the battery--but just once. My R5 is louder when I replace a battery, which I think is the IBIS doing something. In both cases with power off. That's why I wondered about your battery door and the battery itself.

Only other brainstorm I have is that the power switch is involved, maybe its contacts.

If you bought from Canon USA, check if the return window involves the date they actually receive it back. If only two weeks, move fast unless Canon tech support can convince you this is normal. The video is very convincing that it is not normal! Really like a ghost!

 

[AlanF]

I have a brand new R5, this is the first bit of Canon gear I've ever used. I am waiting on lenses to arrive later today. So far I've just gone through the menus, but I haven't actually pressed the shutter yet.

The body is sitting on my desk, with the switch in the off position, and I hear the shutter opening and closing, completely unprovoked. It seems like the shutter remains open for 12 or so seconds.

Here is the vide of it happening:

Watch videoplayback | Streamable

Watch "videoplayback" on Streamable.

streamable.com

Does anyone have any idea what this is about?

Thanks for alerting me to streamable.com - just what I needed for another post.

 

[david.holmes]

Even after removing and replacing the battery, still happens?

Even my R, without IBIS, does make a shutter-clicking sound when I replace the battery--but just once. My R5 is louder when I replace a battery, which I think is the IBIS doing something. In both cases with power off. That's why I wondered about your battery door and the battery itself.

Only other brainstorm I have is that the power switch is involved, maybe its contacts.

If you bought from Canon USA, check if the return window involves the date they actually receive it back. If only two weeks, move fast unless Canon tech support can convince you this is normal. The video is very convincing that it is not normal! Really like a ghost!

I removed the battery when checking the contacts. Since then the lens has arrived and I now have a lens attached. For the most part, the camera has not been opening and closing the shutter while off, however, it did just reoccur with one open and close. This is very strange.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I'd return the camera for replacement. Don't hesitate, something is wrong. My R5 is here next to me on my desk. It never does that and its been 4 months.

 

[Chris.Chapterten]

I'd return the camera for replacement. Don't hesitate, something is wrong. My R5 is here next to me on my desk. It never does that and its been 4 months.

Agree with this!

 

[Australisblue]

Do you have Bluetooth/Wifi enabled on your R5? If so try disabling them in the menu to see if the camera stops doing this. I use the Canon Camera Connect app on my phone and am able to connect to my R5 when it is switched off via bluetooth, when I go to review the images on the camera via the app, it connects to the wifi on the camera and it makes a shutter clunk noise in my camera bag. I can also get it to do this if I manually go to the list of bluetooth devices in the settings on my phone and try to connect directly, it will connect briefly via bluetooth causing the camera to activate the shutter and then a few seconds later it disconnects and the shutter clunks again. It might not be this at all but it would be worth checking in case it is on and you have something repeatedly trying to connect to your camera. I can't remember what the default settings were when I got mine.

 

[david.holmes]

Do you have Bluetooth/Wifi enabled on your R5? If so try disabling them in the menu to see if the camera stops doing this. I use the Canon Camera Connect app on my phone and am able to connect to my R5 when it is switched off via bluetooth, when I go to review the images on the camera via the app, it connects to the wifi on the camera and it makes a shutter clunk noise in my camera bag. I can also get it to do this if I manually go to the list of bluetooth devices in the settings on my phone and try to connect directly, it will connect briefly via bluetooth causing the camera to activate the shutter and then a few seconds later it disconnects and the shutter clunks again. It might not be this at all but it would be worth checking in case it is on and you have something repeatedly trying to connect to your camera. I can't remember what the default settings were when I got mine.

I did setup bluetooth and wifi, and on that note, others are also reporting this behavior:

https://www.reddit.com/r/canon/comments/l8oc9u

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It seems like the behavior I saw was probably a bug either in camera, with the app, or both. But these other reports make it less likely this is a hardware defect.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I did setup bluetooth and wifi, and on that note, others are also reporting this behavior:

https://www.reddit.com/r/canon/comments/l8oc9u

Canon-mount SLRs - Photography - FM Forums

Explore Canon-mount SLRs photography discussions. Share your photos, discuss gear and techniques, and buy or sell equipment in our marketplace.

www.fredmiranda.com

It seems like the behavior I saw was probably a bug either in camera, with the app, or both. But these other reports make it less likely this is a hardware defect.

Hardware issues can be batch related. The camera definitely should not do that, Contact Canon and ask. Imagine what your shutter count would be if you went to sell it in a couple of years.

 

[Australisblue]

If you can afford the time (given any exchange windows etc.) I would not be rushing to return the camera without debugging as much as you can as the camera might be perfectly fine. I would agree with others that it should not be doing that but that doesn't mean there is a fault with the camera itself. I'm pretty confident my camera has no issues but I can manually go and make it do something similar fiddling with my phone so the theory another device can be making it happen randomly is pretty plausible.

I would be interested to hear if it stops if you disable bluetooth/wifi in the camera, if so I'd turn it back on and assuming it is still doing it I'd then start disabling bluetooh/wifi on other devices, starting with the most obvious like your phone if you've used that with the camera and if it's still doing it I'd disable anything else I could find.. if it was still doing it, I'd physically move it well out of range of where I had it to 100% rule out other devices. If it's still doing it then I'd look at speaking to Canon or the store asap. If you can find a device that looks like it might be causing it I'd start poking about, maybe going into bluetooth settings and if the camera is listed, does it change to "Connected" at the time the shutter thing happens, if it has the Canon app on uninstalling it and checking etc..

I am assuming here that the R5 shutter noise when connecting to the camera with the Canon app to review photos is currently expected behaviour though.. otherwise mine has a problem too haha I wouldn't like it doing it all the time randomly but somehow it is reassuring as I hear the faint clunk in my bag and know that my phone has connected to it ok.

 

[david.holmes]

Canon customer support recommended sending the camera in for repair. That seems absurd for a brand new camera. I didn't have a lens to test the camera with in the 14 day window (Canon's website said the 24-70 2.8 was in stock, but it wasn't).

However, since disabling Wifi (not Bluetooth) I have not noticed this issue reoccurring.

 

[Australisblue]

Hmm well, in my experience (not just with Canon) if there is any issue that is remotely obscure, the front line support staff will not really know if something like that is or isn’t a hardware issue. I mean, it might be but personally I'd try and rule out as many other possibilities first and showing it's somehow related to wifi is a great first step.

Have you used your phone to connect to the camera while you were playing before this started happening? If so, can you bring up the wifi settings, see if the R5 wifi is listed and if it changes to connected when this happens? If so, out of interest do you have the wifi password saved in the wifi settings? If I try to force my phone to join the network just in wifi settings, then it pops up asking for a password, if I use the app, it is like that supplies the password rather than saving it in the wifi settings i.e. so my phone is not able to actually connect unless the app tries to initiate it. I am wondering if the password was actually saved in the wifi settings, the phone might be connecting and authenticating over wifi and causing the issue, thinking your camera is a wifi access point briefly until it realises there is no internet gateway, if that was the case you could try selecting “Forget this network” in the settings.

I would certainly be trying to confirm there is something actually trying to connect to your camera that is causing it.

You could also try clearing out any info related to your camera from your phone and also if that doesn't help, reset your camera to factory settings to start afresh before resorting to sending it in if you're already outside the 14 day window.

 

[t.linn]

FWIW, four and a half years after the original post my R5 is exhibiting the same behavior. Putting it into
Airplane Mode to turn off BT and WiFi seems to completely resolve the issue.