P: Tethering

[scottawoodward]

I am a professional photographer who relies heavily on LR for my digital workflow. I tether my Nikon D3 and D3x to LR frequently. I've never had an issue with tethering my cameras to LR until this past week. And, after much frustration and processes-of-elimination and testing the issue across multiple machines, I BELIEVE that the problem has to do with the latest OSX 10.6.8 update when running LR 3.4.1.

You can read my initial post about this problem on Adobe forums here http://forums.adobe.com/message/37883... when I was stumped about why it was happening.

Then you can see my follow-up post about this problem today here http://forums.adobe.com/message/37894... and why I think it has to do with the recent 10.6.8 update.

Please feel free to contact me for anymore information. I really hope you can look into this issue.

Thank you,

Scott Woodward

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Can't you set up a remote session with some of us that are having the problem? Or is this problem being worked on from Adobe's San Jose location? I'm sure someone looking around these boards is in the San Jose area and could reproduce the problem for you. I can't even get lightroom to acknowledge the camera anymore. It sees that it's a 5D but doesn't register any of the settings. I used to be able to get it going and then it would disconnect, but since 3.5 I can't even get a single image through tether.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

is there any chance that this could be caused by a third party plug in? Such as gmail, or theturninggate, or timothy white plugins? Or any develop settings imported into lightroom?

[scottawoodward]

Ben,

There seems to be an increasing amount of discord at http://forums.adobe.com/message/39320... about the LR3 tether issue. Clearly the people experiencing the problems here on this specific thread are not alone; hopefully more people will share their specific issues here in an effort to work towards a solution for the the problem(s).

Although I understand that you cannot recreate the problem(s) in your office, I still find it surprising (especially given the ubiquity of the issues here). Steve makes a good suggestion below: would you consider setting-up a remote session with some of the people who are experiencing these problems as a way to see and better understand the issues that users are facing? Candidly, if you cannot recreate the issues at your office, how do you intend to find a solution to what others are clearly experiencing en masse?

Scott

[Geoff the kiwi]

Scott, can you please provide exact details of your set up - computer, camera, Lightroom and any extras. This could be helpful in attempting to isolate common factors. Thanks.

[bcarmic]

Why were my comments removed? I'm saying Adobe is not fully appreciating the problem and I recommended people switch to Sofortbild. While Adobe decides that professional photographers are looking for a glitch free platform to shoot with. LR3 is NOT IT. Witness all these complaints and where is the acknowledgement that LR3 is seriously flawed and needs to be immediately fixed. Heck, send someone to Boulder and I'll show you the problem. If Adobe is smart they take this SERIOUSLY and issue WHITE PAPER and RECALL. And throw some serious intellect at solving this bugginess. I'm waiting...

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

it seems like this statement from Adobe's website should have about a hundred (*) next to it. such as: **as long as you are using an mac OS that is no longer sold by Apple and you do not install your OS updates.

Are the features the same in the Windows and Mac OS versions?
Yes. Lightroom 3 contains the same features and delivers the same professional, best-of-class results, no matter which platform you choose to use.

[Daveloulou]

I seem to have things under control. D700 tethered to LR3.5 RC and MBP Lion.After removing all the lightroom files in the library - As per Benjemin's advice:Go into user/Library/Preferences and move any files with "Lightroom" in the name.
Did a 2 hour shoot and all was ok. Hope it stays that way.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I just did that and it didn't do anything for me

[scottawoodward]

Geoff, I started this thread and my set-up is listed in the title of the post: I operate a Nikon D3 and D3x, a new MBP running 10.6.8 and the problems persist across LR 3.4.1 and 3.5RC. Scott

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Scott, I've done the same thing. I had another thread running at the same time.I gave up and bought Aperture. I haven't had a single problem yet and I've probably shot 7,000 images through tether since I switched. If this is something you need make the change. Adobe clearly doesn't engineers strong enough to find the fix, or it would have been done. One nice thing though, I was reading a blog about Aperture (trying to get up to speed on it since I bought it) and the blogger wrote that lightroom 3 is NOT compatible with Lion and he could not get it to work for demonstration reasons. So he used a friends computer. Aperture showed to be a functional product. You might just cut your loses, inform your friends that may be in the same boat, and say goodbye to Lightroom 3 "the light stands for lite like amateur"

[Geoff the kiwi]

Scott, I did ask for more details than you supplied. However have you tried a different user account?

[scottawoodward]

Geoff,

My apologies but what other specific details would you like to know about the system I am running besides the computer type, OS version, LR version and camera types?

I have only one user account in my MBP (mine)?

Scott

[ben anders]

Posted very early on this issue with the latest update of LR prior to 3.5RC. Running snow leopard. Real tether issue with the connection crashing after an initial couple of frames shot and then a pause. Followed this thread and there has seemed to be lots of thoughts of USB library issues etc. I upgraded to Lion and LR3.5RC. Everything worked really well until the last couple of days shooting. Same old problem occurs. Shoot a couple of test frames then pause to change lights or what ever then carry on shooting and it crashes.

Only fix is to quit LR, turn off camera and start again. Can't tell you what a nightmare this is when trying to shoot portraits in a tricky lighting situation. Looks totally unprofessional and I really can't put up with it again. Surely you can add a error log feature to LR we can send you?? It just doesn't work!!

Please can you give us an update on these issues.

[scottawoodward]

I am not a software engineer, but as a suggestion, would it help at all to look deeper into Sofortbild's tethering code?

As mentioned here by me (and others), Sofortbild continues to work with the 10.6.8 upgrade across all my Nikon cameras. I have moved to using Sofortbild for tethering with a watched folder in LR and have had not a single hiccup/problem/hang/lost photograph.

Clearly Sofortbild has not been affected by the recent Apple OSX updates. Perhaps there is merit in understanding what Stefan Hafeneger (the developer of Sofortbild) has done in the design of Sofortbild that renders it still workable following Apple's OSX upgrade.

[bcarmic]

RIGHT ON Scotty! That is exactly what LR3 should do. In fact, they should license Stefan's work... or buy out his franchise... clearly there is a work around here.

Now Adobe step up ...

Bob Carmichael
bobcarmichael.com

[scottawoodward]

I saw today on Twitter -- and just confirmed it at http://www.adobe.com/support/download... -- that the LR 3.5 final release is now available for download.

Although I have downloaded the program, I haven't had a chance to test it yet -- but I am anxious to do so to see if the tethering bugs have been solved.

Although, I must admit, it seems curious to me that Adobe would roll-out the LR 3.5 final release and not announce it on this forum if they had in fact repaired the tethering problem.

But then again, it also seems curious to me that Adobe would roll-out the LR 3.5 final release without repairing the widely-reported tethering problem in the first place.

I will report back with my personal Nikon D3/D3x tethering findings and would encourage others to do the same.

[ben anders]

Think I have made a weird discovery and not sure if its a one off with my equipment. After upgrading to Lion and LR 3.5 the problem is as worse as ever.
I've tried using other software to tether and then use a watch folder with LR. There's just not much out there and as Canon have not released Canon Utility for Lion its a real issue now with no work around!!

After testing all day though my Canon 1DSmk3 works perfectly tethered until I use the mirror up function. I shoot interiors and use the mirror up all the time. The tether crashes as soon as I raise the mirror to shoot. Would be interested to hear if this is the case for anyone else. This is probably why this is has been an intermittent problem for me as I don't always shoot with the mirror up (portraits etc)...

[bcarmic]

No this is Adobe not being flexible or transparent enough to admit that LR3 has a serious incompatibility with the Apple platform. Of course one dude came up with Sofortbild and he was able to circumvent ALL these issues which is a bit curious??? Why can't Adobe FIX this?

Bob Carmichael

[charlesb31301963]

Here's my 10 cents worth - I too tried the Sofortbild solution but found it hopelessly slow - the same speed as the Nikon Camera Control solution I used prior to LR3. LR3 Tethered was the only thing that allowed me to shoot RAW at a sensible rate and since the the 3.5 upgrade I've only had trouble if I try and shoot too quickly so that the buffer on the D3 gets more than half full and even then it's not always a problem. My current workaround is to keep one eye on the buffer indicator in the viewfinder while I shoot to alert me to any seize ups - not ideal but the weird thing about this problem is that so many people are having different symptoms.........

[Lee_Jay]

So, mirror-lock-up on a 1DsIII and filling the buffer on a D3 can cause problems on 3.5, but otherwise 3.5 has largely fixed this issue on Mac?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I certainly can't make that statement. I have experienced two tethered sessions of 2-3 hours without any problems since my last update to this discussion. However, my most recent session a couple of days ago failed after about 4 hours and 400 or so photos into the session. This time around I wasn't able to restore tethered capture by simply stopping and starting tethered shooting from the menu, as I have been able to do in the past. I had to shut down LR, unplug the camera, replug the camera and restart LR a couple of times before tethered operations resumed successfully. All in front of the client and a roomful of observers, btw. Once it restarted there were no subsequent failures for the remainder of the session--about 2 hours and 250-300 additional photos.

To summarize, 3.5 has NOT largely fixed this issue on a Mac!

[scottawoodward]

When the LR 3.5 final release update was made available a couple of weeks ago, I was skeptical that Adobe had solved the Nikon tethering issue with 10.6.8 (see my posting above 14 days ago where I say as much; unfortunately, nobody from Adobe has ever replied to my post to confirm/deny that the final update was any different from the release candidate).

As a test -- prior to actually shooting with models/clients on-set -- I tethered my D3x to LR 3.5 and kept it connected for nearly a full day while doing office administration (7+ hours). Sometimes I shot in bursts; sometimes I left it alone for 10, 15, 20, 30, 60 minutes and then shot a few frames. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my D3x disconnected and wouldn't transfer files only a single time (and I think I attribute that to my MBP going into "Sleep Mode" after a prolonged period of sitting idle), but the other 200+ photos I snapped over the course of the day were all captured without any incident.

This gave me enough confidence to try tethering LR 3.5 on a proper location fashion shoot, which I did earlier this week. My shoot was 4 hours long and I shot per my normal pattern: bursts of shooting 10, 15, 20 shots and then stopping to review them with my assistant or client or talent and then restarting again. During this time my MBP ran on a mixture of AC power and battery power and I never turned-off my D3x and I never closed or restarted LR 3.5 or my MBP. The result: I had a single instance of LR 3.5 disconnecting and not transferring my files.

When I stopped and restarted tethering, the files came into LR, so I was no worse for wear. Admittedly, this was a hassle. And admittedly, it was a little embarrassing in front of my client, but it wasn't a show-stopper by any means.

Overall, my most recent test and actual shoot results have given enough confidence in LR 3.5 to try it again on my next shoot this week end. I am interested to see what happens, but I do have Sofortbild on standby if I start to experience similar issues as I did with LR 3.4.1 and 3.5RC.

Ben (or other Adobe employees monitoring this thread), I would really love to have confirmation if you made further changes to the tethering function on the final release of LR 3.5 vs. the release candidate.

[Benjamin Warde]

Hi Scott,

Yes, we made further changes to tether between the 3.5 release candidate, and the final release of 3.5. Needless to say, given the extremely erratic nature of the problems (not to mention the hostile tone on this thread), I was hesitant to post here again saying that we'd "fixed" it. But yes, I can confirm that additional changes were made, which we hoped would improve things.

-Ben

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Ben,
I would agree that the changes have improved things. A single failure in three separate tethered sessions is certainly better than what was occurring earlier. Hopefully the fact that Scott and I are experiencing similar failures during similar shooting situations will be helpful, in spite of the elusive nature of the problem. If you have any suggestions to aid in your troubleshooting I would be glad to try them.

[bcarmic]

Scott still on sofortbild and hesitant check out LR# after being burnt by the failures. That the above "employee" finds this a hostile thread is really interesting. I'd like to see Adobe employee apologizing to my clients cause their software is faulty and NO ONE seems to want to admit it. Bizarre.
Let me know when the coast is clear I have a LOT of images in LR as well.

Best
Bob Carmichael