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

[ralarock]

* Make/Model of camera Nikon D700
* OS version Windows 7 ultimate with all latest patches. Lightroom 3.6, Camera Raw 3.6
* What problem you're having - can you shoot anything through tether?
Lightroom does not recognize the camera is attached. Continuously displays "No Camera Detected" on tether panel. Cannot shoot anything through tether.
* If so, how many photos successfully transfer before it stops?
none, never recognizes camera is attached
* What, if any, steps gets the camera tethering again after you have the problem?
deleted preferences files per technote, same exact behavior

* What length USB cable are you using?
tried 8 feet and 3 feet
* Have you tried a shorter cable?
yes 3 feet, which is never going to be acceptable, btw, needs to be at least 10 feet
* Have you tried a different USB port?
yes, several, Windows sees the camera is attached and I can view files on the card inserted in the camera
* Are you using a USB hub? Powered or unpowered?
no, built in ports, powered
* Did tethering work for you previously?
never
* When you're tethering, how do you normally shoot? Do you do a bunch of big bursts, followed by a pause to let the computer catch up? Or is it more steady? If you shoot very quickly, can you get the problem to still happen if you shoot more slowly?
have not had the chance, but expect to shoot in short bursts
* Are you adjusting the camera settings quite a bit as you tether? Does that seem to have anything to do with the failure?
not had the chance to try it
* Open "About This Mac" from the Apple menu, then click "More Info". In the window that opens, select "USB". Your camera should be listed under "USB High-Speed Bus". Click on it and look at what it says for Speed. Does it say "Up to 480 Mb/sec" or "12 Mb/sec"?
I'm using Windows 7, the camera is listed Devices and Printers as D700

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Hello!
I am shooting with the Nikon D3s and D3X, and am still finding with Lightroom 3.6 that it is freezing occasionally. With Lightroom 3.4 it froze possibly once every hour, then went back to 3, it froze every 15 minutes, now with 3.6 far less, but the problem is still there. I am tethering to a Mac book pro with Mac OS 10.6.8.
Help!
Thanks guys!

[bcarmic]

We need to create a class action suit fellow photographers. Adobe is fraudulently selling LR3 as a tethered application and it is NOT. Let's join in and make them admit their situation.

Bob Carmichael
Boulder, CO

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I had this problem on 10.7.4 and three versions of Lightroom (3, 4 and 4.1).
I've found a fix:
Delete the two files that start with "com.apple.PTPCamera" in Preferences folder as well as the Lightroom4 plist files as per the troubleshooting guide from Adobe.

Not sure if this will work for you on 10.6.x but might be worth a try.
The other thing that worked for me was create a new user account, switch to it, and see if tethering works on that. If it does, then it's a preference file prob in your normal account.

[bcarmic]

GREAT! Sydney Low has a "FIX" for a major LightRoom product that Adobe bills as "easy, convenient, professional" etc etc but even versions of LR4 are not syncing in tethered mode.

WHY are we tolerating this LR users? this has been a known FACT for one year and ADOBE can't get with NIKON, APPLE, CANON a fix this.

What a ridiculous situation. Makes me really wonder about ADOBE. Unbelievable screw up.

Carmichael

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I have a 5D Mk I which did tethered OK but is no longer supported in osX Lion (as adobe said it was basically to old.)

So I bought a 5D Mk III and they're not supporting that either.

Get on with it Adobe. Surely there is a plan to make this work - can you can resolve this please?

How come Aperture supports the 5D mkIII?

[planty]

Yep I have discovered same problem this week.
LR 3.6 Works fine tethered in Osx 10.6.8 but started to fail in 10.7.4
Not Happy !
Simon Plant

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I have had some problems with my D300s and it was fixed by removing the memory cards from the camera.
Hope this helps someone...

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

On OSX 10.7.4 running Lightroom 4.2 and tethering with a Canon 5D mk2, I have been having major tether issues pop up in the middle of commercial jobs where LR and the Camera freeze with 7-8 images in the buffer and the only solution is to disconnect and lose all images in the buffer, that is really bad. This happened to me on wednesday during a shoot for a major SoCal theme park and finished the shoot using EOS Utility, which is a lack luster program.

I love Lightroom but If I was photographing a celebrity and only had five minutes with them, I don't think I'd feel comfortable using LR as my tether software.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Same problem OSX 10.7.5/LR 4.2 /d300 happens randomly V unhappy with Adobe as nothing apparently is being done

Will try Sofortbild, have a copy of the Nikon tethered software in my experience if this freezes (on older PC laptops mainly) at least it recovers the 'lost' files when you restart.

With LR those files are just gone, I work with kids mainly so its not often possible to re shoot, I've lost a lot of sales/money through LR.

[AGnutley]

Nobody at Apple, Adobe, Nikon or Canon wants to address this as a priority. We sent a photographer on a location shoot and the same thing happened - latest OS and latest LR 4.2. So we are now running MAC 10.6.8 and LR4 and it is good, so we will not be updating for a while. The update issue only arises if we buy a new camera otherwise we will stay at this set up.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Here is something I found that might help: try removing your memory card(s) from your camera before you connect your camera.
Or: try taking the first picture by clicking on the button in LR instead of the button on the camera.
It worked for me.
Hope this helps.

Robert Geoffrion, Montréal Québec

[cgoewie]

I frequently encounter the same problem during studio photoshoots with models. It's very annoying. I use LR 3.6 running on a HP laptop (2012) with Windows 8 - Nikon D700 firmware version A:1.02, B: 1.02 with a CF card in the camera, full battery, USB 2.0 connection. After shooting tethered fine for an hour, I pause, turn the camera off and then on again. Or I disconnect the cable if I want to move around freely. In these cases the connection is lost and cannot be restored. Very often not even after restarting the computer and reconnecting the cables. What happens is that the laptop recognizes the camera but LR does not. After another hour and several tries later it suddenly connects.

I'll try Roberts solution but I think Adobe should come up with a decent fix.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Inserting a card triggerd the bug with me. Unfortunately, removing it again did NOT fix the problem.

[cgoewie]

I just installed LR 4.3 but the tethering problem occurs just the same as in LR 3.6.

[cgoewie]

I followed Adobe LR roubleshoot solution Tnr 7: Delete: Lightroom 4 Preferences.agprefs or Lightroom 3 Preferences.agprefs, located in Users/[user name]/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Lightroom/Preferences/ and it looks like this has finally solved the issue.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I am completely amazed and somewhat confused. I love lightroom and recently purchased LR5. Never used the tethered option before but went to NEC show recently and decided it would be a useful move, bought the cable. I use a Canon 5D Mk I and never thought for one minute that this wonderful camera would be a problem. Having read the various posts, I'm not sure where the blame lies, but guess its with Canon. Does anyone know if there is a "fix" for this please?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I have the same issue with LR and Capture one pro. I have a new iMac and the most recent updates of LR and Capture One while shooting with a Canon 5dMK2. This is looking like a MacOSX issue to me after reading the adobe and phase one forums.