Referring back to my post from February 28th, 2020 , the SGP connect problem for my D800 has returned.
I can with release 3.1.0.479 of SGP not connect to my Nikon D800 DSLR using “Nikon” as the camera alternative in the “Equipment” section of my sequences. This was possible with an earlier release of SGP, after I had made the correction (removal of CF-card) that wes suggested as the answer to my Feb 28th post.
The D800 camera is physically connected via an USB3 cable to my laptop which is running Windows 10 Pro, Ver 1909. When clicking the connect icon in the sequence nothing happens for about 10s, then two error messages are displayed, suggesting me to remove the SD card in the camera, and then yet another message saying “Cannot connect to Nikon camera”.
I have tried with different USB ports of the computer and with settings both “Auto detect” and “D800” for the camera in SGP, with the same, negative, result. I have also ensured that there is absolutely no SD or CF card installed in the camera.
The camera is fully visible in Windows file manager when connected to the computer. I can also connect to and fully control the camera from e.g. digiCam Control, so I would say that the Windows settings and the general USB connectivity are OK, but something is not working in the interface towards SGP.
Any suggestions for a solution are greatly appreciated.
I have made some further experiments with the D800 connection, and I would definetly say there is something fishy with the Nikon camera driver in SGP. My current observations are:
The connection with my D800 consistently works with all other camera control/download SW I have on the PC, so there seems to be no problem at the USB or Windows levels, at least not for any other programs.
It is sometimes possible to get the connection to work also from SGP. I have been able to start the connection from the sequence a few times if I have first started SGP and then, as a next step, turned on the camera so that it is detected by Windows. In this case the connection may start (if you are lucky).
If the connection has been started from SGP I can turn it off and then on again as long as both camera and computers are powered on. If I turn either PC or camera off and then on again, it is seldom possible to make a new connection from SGP.
The steps in point 2 that may enable a connection work equally well irrespectively if there is an SD card, a CF card or both in the camera. Neither does it matter if the SD or the CF card have been selected as the primary card for the camera. So it is definetly possible to connect to a D800 also with the SD and CF cards in place - but only sometimes and stocastical.
All the experiments above were performed with no other USB device connected to the computer and via a direct USB cable between camera and PC.
My take is that the Nikon camera driver in SGP has a problem detecting the correct port used by my camera and therfore only by lucky chance sometimes picks the right one. So I am hoping for an update!
I have noticed that if the camera is connected to the PC and on, the first time I start SGP and try to connect from within the sequence it always fails, irrespectively how many times I try. If I then restart SGP (PC and camera both still on and connected) I can now connect to the camera from within the sequence, one or several times. This pattern seems to be stable and repeatable.
I enclose log links to the first failed attempts and the second successful attempts.
Unfortunately not. I thought I addressed the issue with the last release. You can give this one a try as there are some additional changes around the connect but it seems that you’re not quite getting that far in the process either.
You can also try updating the Nikon SDK for your camera. Below are the files. They need to be extracted into C:\Program Files (x86)\Sequence Generator\NikonLibs\Type0006 overwriting the existing files. Type0006.zip (292.5 KB)
If those steps don’t work I’m not entirely sure what to try next without having the camera on hand for troubleshooting.
@Jared Thanks for your efforts. I do understand the nightmare of keeping up with problems for all the myriad of devices that may connect to SGP, so I do appreciate that you have taken time to look into this one.
I updated the Nikon SDK files as suggested, but with no changes in connect behavior, i.e. first failure and then success after restart of SGP. I have also checked that the D800 camera has the latest firmware release available installed. I did not change to SGP rel 530 as described in the other thread since I am a bit unsure how to do a manual upgrade to a new release.
Anyhow, I am OK with doing a restart of SGP to connect the camera, since that seems to work consistently for me. So do not spend more time on D800 Nikon camera fault finding, there are better things to spend time on!
@Jared Thanks for the information - I have now installed SGP ver 530, but unfortunately that had no effect on the problem.
I can offer one more small piece of information: I connected a Nikon D850 camera in the same way, and it showed exactly the same behavior, i.e. failed to connect and timed out at first attempt and then connected after restart of SGP. So if you want to investigate this issue further, I think you can use any Nikon D8xx camera to reproduce the problem. Of course there may be a dependency on the PC I am using - this is a 3 year old Lenovo P50, i.e a fairly common machine.
Interestingly, I am seeing this same behavior - If I have the nikon connected before I fire up SGP, it will not allow me to connect until I restart SGP.
I can try to grab some logs tonight - I have a Nikon D5100 BTW. I don’t remember this happening in the distant past or on my other computer. Main difference is the computer has usb3, and is a macbook pro running windows under bootcamp.
I have a D5100 as a test camera and I’m not seeing this using that camera when using the 530 build linked above. There were some changes made improve speed and reliability with Nikon connections in that build that are not currently in the build on our release page.
Good to know - I will download and give it a try then. Rare spell of actual good weather here for a change so can test it and see if there are any problems.
@Jared I just want to report that the trouble connnecting the Nikon D800 described above now seems to be gone. At least for the about last 10 times the camera has connected immediately to SGP at the first attempt. Hopefully it will continue this way. I am at release 3.2.0.613.