Sony fixes data loss, lockup and memory card issues with new v2.1 firmware for the A7III and A7RIII
Dec 19, 2018
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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Sony recently pulled Firmware v2.0 for the Sony A7III and A7RIII that was released in October due to the discovery of two fairly major bugs. These bugs would cause photographers to lose RAW images they’d shot along with random lockups of the camera.
Well, now, Sony has released firmware v2.1 to resolve these issues. It also seems to fix a compatibility problem with certain memory cards. They don’t call SanDisk out by name, but they do cite “specific third-party memory cards”. So, presumably, that’s this issue, reported shortly after the V2.0 release.
The “Benefits and Improvements” list for the new update is fairly small. It just addresses these specific issues.
- Resolves a problem caused by specific third-party memory cards, where the cards cannot be recognized by Sony cameras
- Fixes an issue where, in rare cases, images may not be displayed or the camera may stop functioning while writing RAW data onto an SD card that has been used multiple times
Note: No image data on the memory card will be modified or deleted, aside from the data that was being written at the time the issue occurred - Improves the overall stability of the camera
Sony A7III V2.1
Firmware updates are available for the Sony A7III on both Windows (Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10) and Mac (macOS 10.12-10.14).
Sony A7RIII V2.1
Just like the A7III firmware, the A7RIII firmware is available for both Windows (Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10) and Mac (macOS 10.12-10.14).
As with all firmware updates, it’s always advised to install on a fully charged battery or using an AC adapter. Sony also suggests disabling sleep mode on your computer and offers other advice to minimise the risk of software crashes during the update.
Even if you haven’t experienced the bugs present in v2.0 yourself, you’re still best off updating to v2.1 so that you never have to.
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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