Bypass USB hubs to prevent image capture problems

Oct 22, '02 09:34:36AM

Contributed by: yata

I guess this is not really a hint directly related to OS X, but it could be useful if ImageCapture suddenly quits while downloading images from your digital camera. I also got messages saying no camera was connected when, in fact, there was. The problem was that, when hooking my camera up to download images, I always plugged it into a USB hub which I use for peripheral devices.

I decided to bypass the hub and plugged the digicam directly into one of my computer's USB ports. Since doing this, I've had no further problems. I can now download JPG images and AVIs smoothly without worrying about whether ImageCapture is going to quit all the time.

[Editor's note: This is generally good troubleshooting advice as well. When you're having a problem with something, try to make sure it's as directly connected to your system as possible to eliminate intermediate causes. I had a similar issue with a USB switchbox that went flakey a couple years ago...]

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