Hi folks.

I've searched the forum - I'm having a usual problem but the usual answers aren't working for me. FCP 4.5 all of a sudden won't recognize my camera for log/capture or for my external monitor. It all worked just fine 5 days ago. For the life of me I don't know what I did...it's driving me nuts - please help.

My troubleshooting thus far:

- I erased the Quicktime receipts and re-installed 7.04 like Boyd's sticky suggested. No luck. I then read the one about downgrading back to 7.01, which I did. Didn't work.

- I cycled the power on the camcorder, took out all of the batteries, reset the date and time, etc... No dice.

- The camera still works when hooked up to the monitor.

- I plugged it in to my PC upstairs and it was recognized. So the firewire's ok.

- I restored my FCP project to the date I know the external monitor hook-up was working. I lost some work, but it still won't recognize my camera.

- For capture, I use a teeny ZR100. A tech guy told me to re-install the drivers or, if I didn't have the CD, find it off the manufacturer's site. This camera didn't come with anything like that and the site offers only the brochure.

- IMovie won't recognize it either so I don't think it's an FCP problem.

All I can think of now is:

- Since I downloaded the free QT 7.04, do I need to buy the $30 pro one even if I've re-downgraded to 7.01? I think this can't be the solution since it worked 5 days ago, and I've always used the free QT. However, I imagine I must have created this problem while doing software updates. Is there a button within FCP I might've accidentally hit?

- If I do a mac-wide system restore to five days ago, would it go back to working? I've heard this process is sketchy and could cause more problems.

I'm really hoping there's one silly little button I hit that will solve this, but I'm losing time and want to return to my favorite task (color correction).

Sorry if I missed a thread that explains all of this. This site rules.
Thanks

David

Newbie
Long-time-reader first-time-poster.

have you tried getting rid of the FCP preferences?
Also, do you have any other firewire devices plugged in (ie hard drives)?
Does the camera work if you try it on another computer?
Lastly, try plugging the camera into the firewire port with the computer off, turning the camera on, then booting your computer with the camera already turned on.

Thanks for the quick response and suggestions, Andrew.

Still no luck, though. I trashed Preferences (we don't need those?) and tried booting the computer with the camera on.

Our PC upstairs does recognize the camera immediately. The Mac did until recently, but I don't think it ever displayed it on the desktop like the PC did.

There are two firewire ports on the back of my dual G4. Neither are used for anything else, and I've used them both in the past.

David

What version of MacOS are you running? You might want to further downgrade to Quicktime 6.x - you could even re-install the version that came with your FCP disks. I've heard the QT7 doesn't play real nice with FCP4.5

But it's odd that you can't capture in iMovie either. Can you verify that the firewire ports on your mac are OK by using an external drive or another device? Use System Profiler to see whether the camera is recognized via firewire.

No, QT pro shouldn't make any difference AFAIK...

Aha! Knew I overlooked a simple troubleshooting option. Thanks, Boyd.

It must be the firewire ports. Under System Profiler > Firewire it recognizes the bus "Firewire 400" when nothing is plugged in. When a device is plugged in, the message updates to "no information". This happened with both the camera and a LaCie drive. Both of these devices had worked on my Mac last week and still work on my other computer. I'm new, but that seems conclusive. Please correct me if I'm missing something else.

In fact, I now remember when the firewire might've been yanked hard enough to cause this. Sigh... Don't drink and edit, folks.

Thanks guys. It seemed related to this board at the time.
David

Is it just a damaged connector, or do you think the port is actually "fried"? If it's fried then it may be cheaper to buy a firewire PCI card instead of repairing the internal ports.

Thanks, Boyd.

It was just the connector and a 30 dollar card fixed the problem without my having to send it off.

Phew - I only thought of that at the last minute. A bit of knowledge saves a ton of money and heartache.
Love this forum.