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FAQs and Facts

Q. Can CHDK damage your camera ?

A. Short answer: It is unlikely, but theoretically possible. CHDK comes with no warranty for any use; you use it at your own risk. CHDK is created by reverse engineering an undocumented system that directly controls hardware. Because of this, it is impossible to be certain that it is completely safe.

Long answer: It is very unlikely that CHDK will permanently harm your camera. There have been no reports of CHDK damaging a camera, and both the original firmware and the CHDK developers do their best to avoid situations where this could happen. There are at least two ways in which CHDK could theoretically do damage:-

By commanding physical hardware to do something it was not designed to do. For example, it is possible to command the lens hardware to move when the lens is closed. (1) It is also possible to move lens hardware beyond limits allowed by Canons firmware, using scripts or overrides. See UBASIC/ Scripts:_Tele-Macro-Mode (2) and Talk:UBASIC/Scripts#Tele-Super-Macro_Mode_Comments (3). It's worth noting that neither of these cases have resulted in actual damage, and both required direct input from the user.

By overwriting the internal flash ROM where the Canon→ firmware is kept, rendering the camera un- bootable. Since CHDK does not ever intentionally write to internal flash, it would take an extremely unlikely sequence of events to make this happen.

If you are concerned about this, you can minimize your risk by avoiding untested development builds (such as the autobuilds, or test builds posted on the forum) and being careful about what scripts you run.

1.http://chdk.setepontos.com/index.php/topic,2335.0.html

2.http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/UBASIC/Scripts:_Tele-Macro-Mode

3.http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:UBASIC/Scripts#Tele-Super-

See: http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ

Q. When I switch off my camera and then switch it on again, the CHDK program does not work, What's wrong?

A. When you update your camera with CHDK, it doesn't actually change the firmware. Because it is just a memory-resident program, it only remains in the camera's memory until the camera is turned all the way off. So, if something goes wrong and camera does not respond, you can always switch the camera off (or remove the battery, and perhaps delete it from the memory card) to return to the original firmware.

See:- http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ

Q. Does using the CHDK program void your warranty?

A. Please bear in mind that CHDK comes with no warranty for any use; you use it at your own risk. What follows is just a few thoughts, and is not a legal opinion. Many believe that using the CHDK does not harm your warranty, since it is said to be loaded into the memory only temporarily (turn off the cam and it's gone completely) and that it leaves the original camera firmware untouched. Canon→ Tech Support *says: "Unfortunately, any upgrades to the software of the camera not