GH5 froze during recording, resulting in unreadable mdt file

SuperTinyMagnet

Hey folks! I need help repairing a video file. The other day during a professional shoot, my new GH5 froze up when I hit the record button to stop recording at the end of a 23-minute (!!!) interview take. Even after flipping the power-off switch, the camera stayed on and frozen. I had to remove the battery pack. Now I have an unreadable/unfinished .mdt file that can't be read or played back. Has anyone run into this before?

I'm also wondering how I can prevent this from happening again. I was shooting 4K 10-bit 23.976fps using a Lexar U3 150 mb/s SD card with 128GB of storage (I had used 122gb by the end of the take, and had a few gigs to spare.) I was also using a 3rd party battery by Newmowa, but it had plenty of charge remaining.

Thanks for reading! Any leads at all would be hugely appreciated.

TinRoof

Sorry that happened to you. I have not shot with the GH5, but consistently had the same problem with the Panasonic G7 and that same Lexar card (mine was 1000x). As soon as I switched cards-- over a year ago-- I have not had the problem. There were other G7 users who had the same problem with that Lexar card and they have reported that the problem was resolved when they switched cards. I did not try to retrieve the info on the card as it was not critical, so I can't help you with that one. Hope this helps and sorry again for your problem.

Grimor

My G85 always broke this way with Lexar 1000x. Sandisk Pro solved the problem.

Vesku

There seems to be some mdt recovering programs when googling "recover .mdt". There is always a risk of virus with these little programs.

nobbystylus

Sadly this also happened to me on my first shoot (hasn't happened since - and it was firmware 1.0). In the end I found these guys - aeroquartet.com - who fixed it via sending me an app. It cost me sadly - but it was a work project. Can recommend aeroquarte though - they were very helpful.

scotchtape

Yep I am using lexar cards (the same model as you) and they do not play nice with gh5. Very laggy. I ordered some Sandisks last week but haven't received them yet. Good luck with the recovery.

Switch cards ASAP is the only thing you can do unless Panasonic decides to make their cameras play nice with Lexar.

SuperTinyMagnet

Thanks, everyone! Wow, had no idea the Lexar cards could be so problematic for Panny cams. I used Lexar cards with my Canon gear for years with no issues. Nobbystylus, yeah I'm gonna give aeroquartet a try as well, I can't afford to lose this footage.

scotchtape

What a horror story :(

AKED

I have used Sandisc snd Trancend cards over a month now without any problems.

v10tdi

I picked up a couple of the Lexar 2000x cards - no problems thus far.

Fost

I'm in Lexar 2000X with no probs so far. Just out of interest though - are you using the official battery? I had a problem with one make of battery which I chucked out. I'll try and find the sales email with the make on it.

v10tdi

@Frost: OEM battery. I have a number of these that I've picked up since the GH3.

FWIW - I have found that the GH5 does use batteries much faster than the GH4. Not unexpected given some of the GH5 features. And to be fair, the GH4 has excellent battery life compared to any of my other cameras.

davjd

I am using a transcend uhs-II 64 GB card and no problems until now with my gh5

LeonD

I had the same thing happen to me, but my files did not get corupted. There seems to be a problem with the Lexar cards... Also there are a few more people on Facebook that have the same problem with the Lexar cards. Someone suggested to format the card in windows and not in the camera, that did the trick for me so far. But still it sucks that i didnt know this before i spend so much money on the card...

johntay555

We are using (4) Panasonic Lumix G85. We are using 128 and 256 lexar 1000x cards and they are all giving us a file randomly. The file is .mdt and they are 54.5mb in size. We believe there is an issue using Lexar cards with panasonic G85. We are about to switch over to Sandisk because of the issue. Any new comments or solutions? We've tried a lot of things to resolve the problem. We are now running 1.2 firmware.

JanH

I had the same problem with the Lexar 1000x 128 card (I only bought 1) in both my G7 and G85. Searching on-line showed others were having issues with this same card. It's relegated to photos only for now. I bought some Transcend 64 GB U3 cards and Sandisk Extreme 90 MB/sec U3. No problems in either camera with these cards.

kingc

I just purchased the gh5 and while testing the new camera, it was freezing up on me too. Found this post, replaced the Lexar 64gb 1000x 150mb/s with my other Sandisk 128 Gb 95mb/s and everything works fine.

rafalin

SuperTinyMagnet. It's my fourth time freezing on me, wedding ceremony (f&$#) - dance performance - commercial set. If anyone has any information I'd really appreciate it. I don't trust this machine, I can't. Thanks guys.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

Can be card brand, can be lemon GH5.

Also always use two cards on all important shots. We had some card fails on exhibitions also.

Vesku

GH5 is more clever with "too slow card error" than GH4. GH5 almost always saves the file when it stops and says "too slow card". GH4 makes always unreadable .mdt file.

DrDave

Did you try Easeus?

fosterchen

I've also used aeroquartet (also known as treasured), cost me $100+ but they successfully got my video back, albeit at a different framerate for some reason, but I just used interpret footage in Premiere Pro.
I don't trust anything but Sandisk Extreme Pro cards now. Was using Transcend.

CFreak

I had a 128 GB Trancend Gold SD card (90/60Mb/s -it had different read and write speeds) break off recording once on the GH4. I low level reformatted it several times and tested the crap out of it. I thought it was fine and finally had the problem happen again (not on a paid shoot). Finally (I think) I used the aja speed test app (the app with the graphing feature) and spotted a sector of the memory was always very slow to write, in just that one spot. I now use it for non-critical work only (stills only). The card had developed a bad spot after ca. 50 uses. YMMV but, it sounds like a similar problem with the SD media.

Priestmiester

Hi guys. I was on a paid shoot today and experienced the freeze on recording. I pressed record to stop after a 23 minute take and it was simply stuck on record. Well, it wasn't still recording actually as the red record symbol wasn't flashing like usual, it was on constantly and the seconds weren't ticking away. I left it 5 minutes and still no change. I turned the camera off and it stayed on. In the end I took out the battery. When I turned the gh5 back on I had lost that take!! I was recording in PAL, 25 fps, 4k 10bit. What I'm most concerned about is that from the above posts, it looked like the memory cards were to blame, but I was using a 64gb Sandisk Extreme Pro. I'm also a wedding videographer so the thought of this happening on a ceremony or speeches has absolutely knocked my confidence with he gh5. Even dual record wouldn't mitigate this issue. Any thoughts?

guym

Just happened to me too. Two cards shooting 4k. Freezes up wont unlock all the video gone. Ridiculous.

LongJohnSilver

In the end... Except paying this earoquartet company, are there other viable solutions?

Thanks

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