I would've used the "shocked" icon for the title, but the light bulb was as close as I could get it.

I found this thread/site all about ERR99: http://www.richardsnotes.org/archive...ontact-points/

A lot of the recommendations involve cleaning the contact between the lens and the camera, but one person said that updating the firmware cleared up their error. I decided to do that (update the firmware), 'cause why not? It might save me some headaches in the future if I ever get this problem solved, right?

I was going to buy some lintless (nylon) q-tips and a clean eraser next time I went to the store so I could clean the contacts and see if that would work. I wasn't planning on doing a test with just the firmware updated, until I read a post about someone trying it with the lens detached, to ensure no "contact" problems. I thought, "You can take a picture with the lens off?!" So I set the camera outside to try it.

I recorded the time by taking a pic at 19:44. I let it sit for awhile. The battery was dead (it was already pretty close, anyway), so I replaced it with a warm one. I took a pic at 20:22, it worked fine, so I took a few more, totaling nine. It was still working, so I brought the battery back in and let the camera sit a while longer. More pics at 20:54- five of them. After an hour time I should be getting errors on every pic, so I'm satisfied that it's working. None of them were black, and no ERR99's appeared.

I'm shocked! But thrilled. To clarify, the shutter was moving a little slower than when it's warm, but the pics didn't suffer any for it. I must e-mail Canon about this. Imagine, saying I should pay $300 to fix something a little software can take care of! He could have asked if I had the latest firmware. :mad2:
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Regarding the autofocus- yeah, I agree, it sucks. It didn't know the camera could take sharp pics, but one day I got lucky photographing a water glass, and WOW, the ice looked nice. But two or three pics out of hundreds have a portion of the pic in perfect focus? Not fun.