Topic: brand new R-09, randomly stopping/shutting down & producing WAVs that won't play

[thirtyfour]

Just got a new R-09 last week in anticipation for a 5-day live event (was getting sick of spending $9/DAT/show and worrying about tape length, and I still don't have a digital input to transfer my shows).  Got an 8G Transcend class 6 card, and tested it the next day at home by letting it run all night.  Worked fine, recorded about 7.5h before it stopped, and still had enough battery power to turn it back on and play with it a bit.

So the first of my 5 shows was Wednesday- the opening band taped fine, but my recording stopped in the 2nd song of the main act.  Now, at this point I'm thinking "OK, I had to turn the levels down 1 or 2, so maybe I didn't put it back on HOLD correctly, since I'm not that familiar with it yet."  I didn't notice and start it back up again until :30s before the end of the 4th song later, so I missed all those.  It managed to record again just fine until the very last song, at which it cut again.  And I'm pretty sure I had it on hold.

2nd show went fine- no problems.  I checked the screen with great paranoia, and it ran just fine the whole time (on the same set of batteries, no less).

3rd show last night, I swapped batteries & reformatted the card.  Again, the opening band had no issues.  I stopped & restarted after their set to start a new file, and continued to check every song or 2.  On the 7th song, I noticed that it was COMPLETELY POWERED OFF.  And I KNOW this time it was on hold, 'cause when I tried turning it back on, it flashed the 'HOLD is ON' thingy (I'd also been periodically pressing the volume up/down buttons to trigger that message, just to make sure).  Started it up, started recording again.  And it cut near the end of the NEXT FREAKIN' SONG.  Another full song went by before I noticed & started it back up again (fortunately during some long banter).  The rest of the show was fine.  BUT- when I got home, I discovered to great irritation, that file #2, the start of the main act, WILL NOT PLAY.  Either on my computer, OR on the R-09 itself (it just skips to track 3).  Needless to say, I am PISSED.  I just hope it's recoverable w/ sox or something...

Now, I have 2 suspicions- 1, it's a problem with the memory card.  But that doesn't explain the whole thing turning itself OFF (and since I can't play the file it turned off on, I can't tell WHEN it did).  2, overheating- I seemed to have the most problems during songs where the crowd was going crazy and it got so hot & humid that my glasses started to fog up.  Which also might explain the lack of problems at the 2nd show- since I was right behind a barrier, I had a nice pocket of air around me (at least in front of me) at all time.  Has anyone else had problems like this?  And more importantly, how do I fix it?  I've already lost several songs that I was really looking forward to having, that I've never heard live before & probably won't ever again, due to the nature of the 5-day set (each night showcases a different album). -_-;

[china_rider]

If I had to guess I would agree with Moke.

I also use the Transcend but mostly in low humidity settings and have never had a problem.

I notice you mention heat.... I use standard 2700mah rechargeable AA batteries and when I start recording I put the unit in my pocket (tight space) or a gear bag (more open but no ventilation) and I have never had heat issues with the R9.  It gets somewhat warm... but no where close to what I would consider hot.  Also, I live in AZ and have used the R-9 quite a few times this last summer at outdoor concerts in 110 degree weather.  There seems to be no heat issues with mine and I don't recall other posts stating that this has been a problem.

EDIT: 2 things....
1. Just to be safe, even though the unit is new, make sure you have the newest firmware on the machine.

2. Regarding batteries.  The only time I have had my R-9 act funky is when I would leave my rechargeable batteries in a pile and just pick out any two to recharge at any time.  Unless you have a fancy charger and you don't always charge the same batteries as a pair  the different batteries can get different memories and hold different amounts of energy when fully charged.  Charging mixed batteries in the end has lowered my battery life and has caused the R-9 to shut off earlier.  I notice on mine the meter shows full until about 5 min before the batteries are about to go.  On top of that even though it shut off I still had enough juice to turn it back on and run for a few min.  I now number my batteries in pairs and make sure I charge the pair at the same time and use them at the same time in the R-9 instead of mixing and matching.  This was a tip from another member of the board.

[thirtyfour]

It's 1.30, so I'm on the latest firmware, and I was using alkalines.  So, still no ideas.  I managed to have no problems the last 2 nights- whether that's because I took it out of my pocket periodically to prevent overheating, or because the SD card's sporadically working, I still don't know.

On the down side, people constantly ramming into my back pocket (and thus the straight plug on my mics) has caused the right channel on my battery box's jack to die, leaving me w/ 1 channel.  Gonna have to replace those now... -_-;