Sorry to hear about that. I had that exact same thing happen to my third E-M10 body when it had about 600 shutter trips which after having it repaired under warranty was one of the reasons I sold my E-M10's. I found no way to remedy the situation when it happened. I hope to never experience that on my long out of warranty, remaining E-M5.
Seems it does react if I turn it on and hold the OK + Shutter button, which causes the red AF assist light to blink steadily. (if that's an error code for something)
Least my old E-P3 which I haven't used in over a year and a half doesn't seem to be fussing with either the 45/1.8 or the 12/2.0 (one of the lens I had in the past was erratic with it, I just can't remember which, probably the Panny 20/1.7). If that holds up it won't be so miserable as I send out the E-M5 to Oly for an evaluation and pray it's not over $200.
Thing is that if you follow pretty much any series or brand long enough, you'll find people having issues of some kind...and there's bound to be some horror stories. Much as we wish that these devices were bullet proof, I'm surprised that, with the incredible complexity, there aren't more complaints. You puts your money down and you takes your chances.
Sounds valid but I've been following this for a few years now and just don't see the same failure rates in Panasonic. Do you?
While you're certainly right, there have been far more documented cases of things going wrong with Olympus cameras when compared to Panasonic cameras. That hasn't prevented me from buying two E-M1's and selling one of my GH4's (I am still holding on to one of them though), but I will say that over the past 2 years, I've owned 6 Panasonic m43 cameras (a G5, 2x G6, GH3, 2x GH4) and not a single one of those cameras EVER gave me an issue of any kind. I've owned 2 Olympus m43 cameras over the past 3 months (2x EM1), both of which have experienced the well-documented rear dial issue (one so bad that I had to send it in to get fixed. The other one isn't that bad yet, but I'm sure it'll get there at some point and need to be serviced as well).
I don't recall many (any?) QC issues prior to the EM5 (the EPL2 had a sensor reflection issue, but that was design, not QC). Since then, it's bezel cracks, dial pop-offs, shutter sticks, probably some others. If I think about it, I simply don't recall issues in the Pen series quite like the EM series.
You're just hearing a loud minority on a website predominately Olympus. I've owned at least a dozen Olympus cameras and several dozen lenses and never had any failures in 10 years ( Not saying I represent everyone, just citing one opposite example). I have to wonder what the OP is doing with his cameras, that he's gone through 2 shutters in a year. Maybe he's just unlucky or got a lemon, but that seems very odd.
Well consider I still have an E-P3 that I've used for 6 years at the same rate of usage that hasn't failed yet. Also consider I purchased the E-M5 used early last year, and the problem with the sticky shutter was already there (ie; above 1/2000th of a second or so the exposure would be affected), and it was still there after the first repair attempt, and had to send it out a second time for them to fix it. It could been a lemon, but supposedly they replaced the shutter box that second time around last year. And if you ask anyone that knows me, I am not rough with my cameras, nor swinging them around, or dropping the bag then in hard on the ground. I carry the camera and lens in the same bag that carries my fountain pens, I'm not going to be rough with those.
I've been visiting camera forums for a decade. Never have I heard so many failure reports as I have for Olympus cameras in the past few years. Yes it is anecdotal evidence, but there is an awful lot of it.
Used from someone on here, who paid half the service charge, and as many people had said, once it's been serviced by Olympus it's "practically like a new camera inside". So that seemed more effective even after the final price, than to go for a number of other listing with fewer starting accessories. And thing is, even if I were to replace the E-M5 I have now with another, I'd still want the Mark 1 since I do a lot of waist-level shooting and I hate screens that swing out to the side for that (people tend to change their stance/demeanor when they notice a screen out to the side, or when the camera is bought up to eye level). Plus that way I'm not having to buy 5 more batteries for a different model and having nothing to put my grip on. If you're referring to why didn't I return it in regards to the shutter lock, keep in mind it has been 1.5 years since I purchased it, the shutter lock only happened two days ago.
Sorry for your troubles, but I thought this was the 2nd shutter replacement? You said the buyer paid half of the service...I assume that's the first one? I never had to deal with this. I'd probably just cut my losses if I couldn't get Olympus to help and move on to a new camera body. Well FWIW, the EM1 takes the same battery if you switched to that. I don't know about the others. And the good news is you can pick up an EM5 for ~$300..sometimes even with a kit lens. You can sell your grip to help fund an EM1 (same flip screen design), but grip built in if you went that way. I still have my EM5 and use it regularly, but the EM1 is a better overall camera w/more features. Either way good luck.
I have an EM5 that I purchased used and an EM1 that I purchased new and the only problem I have ever had is losing an few eyecups. I am not like 99% of the people on this forum that treat their camera like it is made of glass. I have dropped mine in the swamp (I only use straps when shooting two bodies at a sporting event), watched them roll down hills (sometimes into the swamp) after dropping them, smacked them into stuff while hanging by my Black Rapid strap, and cannot count the number of times they have gone flying off the seat of my Jeep to end up on the floorboard. You cannot make any kind of conclusion about the reliability of a product based on the number of times you see someone mention something on a forum. To start off with a forum is full of selection bias because only certain types of people frequent a forum and of those that do a large percentage also frequent and make the same post of multiple forums. For those that say they have been on forums for decades and this seems to come recently here so the cameras must be less reliable, you are making assumptions that once again are very biased. First, consider how many people used the internet even 10 years ago compared to today. Second, the advancements in search engines has probable gone up 1000% in the last 10 years. Third, 5ish years ago few people in the general public even knew what google was, now you would be hard pressed to not know what it is or how to use it. So now (more then ever) you have way more people able to get on the internet and when they have a problem with their camera they can do a google search to find out what is up with it. They get some results pointing to a forum, then create an account to say they had the same problem and this is a phenomenon that is very new to probably the last 5 years or so. Just based on the selection bias inherent in forum users, you cannot formulate any type of conclusion about the reliability of a product. Ok, I take that back. You can conclude that out of the people who subscribe to a forum and then post they had a problem had x failure rate compared to those people who subscribe to forum and then posted to the failure thread that they had no failure. You can't even use the total number of people who subscribe to the forum as your population because not everyone who has never had a problem will post saying they have not (I typically don't) and not everyone who has had a problem will post that they have. So basically this is about as scientific as me going fishing and not catching anything and concluding that the lake has no fish in it.
