Statement About the Stalled Shutter Counter Issue on Mirrorless Canon EOS Rx Cameras

The problem

Due to a programming bug in the camera internal firmware, Canon cameras of the following models, R3, R5 and R6 do not count and do not persist the number of physical shutter actuations until the firmware is updated to the newer version with a fix for this issue.

This is not a ShutterCheck bug and unfortunately it can't be fixed from its side.

What cameras are affected?

Canon EOS R3, R5 and R6 with older firmware versions.

Actions required

Upgrade the firmware to the latest available version.

Q&A

If I update the firmware of my camera, would the actual true shutter count value become available?: Unfortunately, no. After you update the firmware to the latest version the shutter counter of your camera will start to count from the very beginning (from zero). There is no way to restore the lost 'actuations' — they are gone forever.
What version of the firmware has this shutter counter persistance issue fixed?: Given the broad range of camera models and numerous different firmware versions it's quite hard to compile the ultimate list of good firmware versions. That would require an access to every body with every firmware ever released, which is practically impossible. That's why it is always recommended to upgrade to the latest firmware version available for your camera model. For Canon EOS R5 & R6 the firmware v1.6.0 is known to handle shutter counts well.

Real-World Example

For example, I had a Canon EOS R6 that came with a firmware v1.0.0. I took about ~32000 images with it. When checked with ShutterCheck my camera showed shutter count '1000' actuations and release count '32000' shots (remember that newer Canons report its counters rounded up to a thousand, so even zero shutter count would be reported as '1000'). The shutter count value is definitely not correct, since I know that all images were taken with a physical shutter and not in 'electronic' shutter mode (that might have explained the big difference in two values). I then upgrade the Camera firmware to v1.6.0 which supposedly have shutter count issue fixed (Canon does not disclose the changes in the release notes that are so low-level so we have to guess and test) and eventually take another 5000 shots. The ShutterCheck readout now looks like this: shutter count '5000' and release count '37000'. We can conclude that the counter now works as expected, but the count goes on from zero since the moment I've updated the firmware to the version with counter persistance fix.

Conclusions

if you want your camera to actually count the physical shutter actuations you have to upgrade your camera body to the latest firmware version available. In case of Canon EOS R6 the first firmware known to surely work well is v1.6.0. Some previous releses might also work, but were not tested.
if you want to estimate the shutter wear of a given camera body with this issue you might have to take the shutter count value with a grain of salt, since the value might be significantly lower than the actual number of physical shutter actuations. The longer the camera was used with a buggy firmware, the more shutter actuations were made, but not recorded.
you might have to treat the release count as a more accurate shutter count in this case. Release count is usually a bigger value, because it's a number of all images ever taken with a given camera in all shutter modes, including fully-electronic one. Treating release count as shutter count during evaluation of a second-hand camera device is kinda like insuring yourself from a worst case scenario.
Canon firmware is buggy and I am really sorry that there is nothing I can do from the ShutterCheck's side to workaround these issues.

Please contact me at support@shuttercheck.app if you have any additional info/corrections about this issue. Thanks!