[clickclick]

I have a several week old K1 with the current 1.41 firmware. Everything seemed OK until last night when it didn't want to power on, and the GPS pilot light didn't want to turn off after it did power on. I'm not sure of the exact push of buttons when it was last "working" - I was fine focus adjusting some lenses, and had the camera on a tripod and may have accidentally pushed the GPS on/off button on the pentaprism housing to get it all rolling. Here's what I now consistently have happening - I can repeat this over and over....

1) The only way to get the GPS pilot light to go on/off is to press the "info" button twice and change the rear screen from "Status" mode to "Electronic Compass" and push the button with this screen displayed. Let's assume the GPS pilot light is on. Press the GPS on/off button, and nothing happens. Press "info" twice, select "Electronic Compass", and with the compass displayed, now press the GPS on/off button, and the GPS pilot light goes off, and the Electronic Compass screen changes back to the standard Status screen. If I power cycle the camera at this point, the camera does not appear to turn on, but if I half or full press the shutter release two times (yes, 2 exactly, every time), the camera comes to life. If I power cycle the camera now, it will turn off and back on normally, and continues to do so as many times as I want to flip the power switch. Now, in this state, pushing the GPS on/off button does nothing and the pilot light stays off. The GPS pilot light will flash rapidly about a dozen times when turning it on in this state, but then stays off after done flashing.

2) From the last state above, to get the GPS pilot light to go back on, i have to go back into the Electronic Compass screen, press the GPS on/off button, the Electronic Compass display reverts to the standard Status display, and the GPS pilot light is still off, and if you push the GPS on/off button, nothing happens, BUT, if I power cycle the camera in this state, go through the same routine of pressing or half pressing the shutter release twice to wake it up, the GPS pilot light will be on! If I turn the camera off now, and then turn it back on in this state, the GPS pilot light remains on. Of note, sometimes in this state it powers up directly, and sometimes I have to press the shutter release half or fully twice - not as consistent as in scenario one, where it seems to power cycle fine after the first dance. With the GPS pilot light on, if I go into the Electronic Compass display, I can press the GPS on/off button, and the light will go off, and the display reverts to the standard Status screen. If I press the GPS on/off button now, the pilot light will turn on, but once again, It will not turn off unless I go back into the Electronic Compass display and press it then and follow the power cycle routine I describe in # 1) above.

3) At no time does the GPS signal strength indicator that looks like a satellite appear on the Status screen.

4) If I go to calibrate the GPS, as soon as I move the camera, it says it's calibrated, unlike my K3II, which requires actually rolling the camera around in the different directions.

5) There does not appear to be any GPS info in the images taken with the pilot light on.

6) I have tried 3 different fully charged Pentax batteries.

7) I have tried 3 different SD cards and reformatted one of the cards.

8) I have left the camera over night without a battery installed to try to make sure nothing was in some transient state with a residual charge - assume there must be some capacitors etc. in here.

8) I can repeat the above to a T over and over. Really makes me wonder if there's a bug in the 1.41 firmware. I had not tried the GPS on this camera prior to stumbling onto all this last night. So I don't know if it always had this malady or not.

9) I have gone into the menus and performed a reset to all factory defaults and a reset on the customization options as well - I find 2 different reset options under the menus - did them both.

10) it doesn't matter what mode the camera is in - Av, Tv, P, etc, and I've pushed every button on the camera in the different states, and there appears to be no effect other than what I describe above.

Any thoughts? Anyone else with the 1.41 firmware - a bug? Defective GPS unit? Swap it out? - less than 30 days - thinking B&H should just exchange this for being defective.

Thanks in advance!

[C_Jones]

If you did a factory reset and it is still occurring it seems to be an ongoing symptom. Your best alternative at this point may be to contact B and H to request a return/exchange of the camera due to the ongoing symptom.

[interested_observer]

Not what I wanted to read, but I'm putting a list together of what (and how) I need to check when my body arrives next week. Sorry for your trouble, but thanks for the heads up. I guess I would just get it swapped out, as being the easiest path.

[clickclick]

Just got off the phone with B&H, and everything is setup to send the malfunctioning one back, and a replacement will be on it's way tomorrow. While a pain in the rear to have the issue, at least B&H makes it easy to take care of.

[C_Jones]

Good step to take.