Hi,
I have a personal rMBP 15" 2015 running Yosemite. I proudly stay behind the times because I prize stability over bleeding edge latest/greatest. I tech at times though, so I work on a variety of machines and with whatever setup/software is available. I am having a hell of a time with USB3 - both with my personal camera, Nikon D810, a semi-regular client's D800, as well as an increasing number of clients moving to Canon's 5DS/5DSR.
Before we get into the issue at-hand, please skip over the basics: yes I have the correct and only provider checked in C1 prefs; yes I have multiple cables; yes I work with a powered dock/hub when possible; yes, I make sure I've got a fully charged battery; yes, I try multiple ports; I even trash com.phase prefs at times.
The most consistent stability I get is a single 15ft TetherTools cable into CaptureOne 8.3.4... ever since upgrading to 9.3.x I've had issues, and often the issues are resolved by falling back to 8.3.4 - just changing software they disappear entirely, and sometimes this proves to be not only a good solution, but the *only* solution. But unfortunately... I'm at times in the position where I don't have the option to use 8.3.4, and/or need a longer connection.
Today I'm on a shoot with a MacPro tower running El Capitan 10.11.6. We're using C1 9.3.0.69. All I'm running is C1 and Chronosync, plus TextEdit and Safari. We've got 32gb of RAM here. Yesterday, running a 5DSR to C1 9.3. via a single 15ft TetherTools cable, over an 11 hour period, we had 6-7 dropped connections. Solving the drops was the usual song and dance of restarting Capture, taking the camera battery out, and at worst restarting the computer, and zapping PRAM - some random collection of one or all of these things.
So, in hopes of eliminating problems on day 2 of this job, and also giving the photographer a little more space from the tower, I brought a TetherTools active repeater cable and purchased their TetherBoost Pro unit (the small cable with the additional 5v power line - *not* the CoreController). I had previously purchased the TetherBoost Pro but returned it when I saw no apparent improvement in tethering the D810 to my personal laptop, but after seeing comments here figured I would give it another go.
We were off to a smooth start, but somewhere around 2 hours in, the 5DSR dropped connection, and was *completely unrecoverable*. We did everything I know to do - swap cables, drop the TetherBoost, restart, swap batteries, everything. Nothing brought the camera back at all. Ultimately we swapped out camera bodies *and* dropped the repeater and TetherBoost. We're back up an running but I'm left puzzled as to why a connection could start and work fine, but then deteriorate? Is it possible the power carried over TetherBoost messed with the 5DSR port?
So here I am on lunch, combing the hell out of the forums here for answers and I'm hoping to aggregate the best possible answers. Here's what I've got so far:
1) Always use a powered hub - best solutions seem to be OWC or Belkin Thunderbolt, but I've heard the cheap Amazon 7-port powered hub is good
https://www.amazon.com/Plugable-SuperSp ... B008ZGKWQI
What do you suggest or have good experience with?
2) If you do not have access to location power, use a TetherTools solution that runs on the external battery - but which one? Is the Core Controller more stable than the TetherBoost Pro?
Core Controller - https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... ller.html/
TetherBoost Pro - https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... oller.html
3) A single 15ft cable is best. A booster or power regulator of some sort is advised when using an active repeater. This returns me to the above - Core Controller or Tetherboost Pro?
4) Update your camera's firmware
What else? The seeming randomness of my problems across a set of different cameras, machines and software is driving me nuts.