Camera Shutdown: connection lost???

[Keith Wire]

Hi Chris and All,

I am trying to get DSLR Remote Pro (version 1.6) to work with my new HP laptop (HP Pavilion DV9500t CTO NB). It is running Vista (32 bit) and has an IEEE 1394 port (4 pin) on the side. I purchased the Prem Firewire 4-P/M to 4-P/M Cable – 6’ from B&H Photo Video because the cable Canon provided with the camera won’t fit.

My camera is a Canon 1D Mark IIn and the firmware has been updated to the latest (Ver. 1.1.2). I have installed the Canon IEEE1394 WIA Driver (Ver. 6.0.0).

I have been trying this for a couple of days and have made some progress, but it keeps locking up with the message “Camera Shutdown: connection lost”. The last time I was able to shoot about 15 pictures before this happened, but usually I only get a few snaps before the camera disconnects and I have to Reboot the PC. When the error occurs I noticed that the “Data transfer icon” on the Rear LCD Panel of the 1D has gone away.

Here are some of the things I have done to get this far…
• Change the Image Record from RAW to Large JPEG.
• Change the Auto Power from 4 Minutes to OFF.
• Set Adobe Lightroom to not start when I turn the camera on.

Do you (or anyone else) have any ideas on what the problem might be, or any other ideas I can try? I like the looks of DSLR Remote Pro and will register in a heartbeat if I can get it to work consistently.

Thanks, Keith

[Chris Breeze]

It sounds as though the Canon drivers may be crashing if you have to reboot the PC each time to get it working again. You could try selecting the option in DSLR Remote Pro's preferences to use the latest Canon libraries. With some cameras the drivers are more reliable if you set DSLR Remote Pro to save images to the PC only (using the Camera menu).

[Keith Wire]

Chris,

Is there a way to restart the Canon Libraries? Are they a service, or a COM Object that I can just restart? (I have quite a bit of experience at programming, so I am familiar with COM Objects .)

I am at work now but if I remember right, the checkbox to use the latest libraries is grayed out. I am using a Canon 1-D Mark IIn. Should I be able to set this option?

After I sent the first message I worked/played at it some more. When it quit, if I turned off the camera, waited about a minute, then turned it on again I could re-connect DSLR Remote Pro back to the camera and shoot a few more pictures. I am wondering if there is something wrong with the IEE1394 driver? Have you ever heard of a problem with them?

Thanks, Keith

[Chris Breeze]

The option to use the latest libraries is grayed out if you're using Windows Vista because the older libraries don't work on Vista.

I don't know how the Canon drivers work, but I'm pretty sure they aren't COM objects. The libraries in the Canon SDK provide a C interface for accessing the camera. Whenever I've had problems with the drivers crashing the only way to get the camera to connect again was to reboot Windows.