Tethered shooting 600D, live view cuts out

I've connected my 600D to my PC to do some tethered live view shooting (of negatives), but for some stupid reason the live view cuts out after each shot.

To begin with it seemed to cut out (live view goes black on PC screen) after roughly 15 seconds, but then I found the metering timer setting and set it to the maximum (30 mins?). Now it doesn't cut out just from leaving it for a few seconds, but it DOES still cut out after each shot, and to re-activate the live view I have to jiggle the mouse over the on-screen shutter button. This seems like such random/odd behaviour from the software. Why does the live view depend on some kind of "activity status" from the user?

This was using Canon EOS Utility 2.14.10 and also with 2.14.20 after updating to latest version (dated 2015 ...).

If anyone has come across this issue with the 600D or any other Canon for that matter, I'd love to hear about it.

After having investigated the issue some more, it seems to be my USB extension which is somehow causing this problem. Having switched to a shorter USB extension the live view feed doesn't cut out after each exposure.

Very strange behaviour indeed. Also strange that a shorter USB cable resolved it.

On a daily basis I use a tethered 600D in conjunction with a 5 meter USB cable. It works smoothly, so your problem may have been due to a technical issue with the cable itself, other than the length of it.

Thanks for the input. The first cable I used was 5 metres, the second only one metre. But I used a different USB port the second time, so I'll have to give that a try with the longer cable too.

David Naylor said:

Thanks for the input. The first cable I used was 5 metres, the second only one metre. But I used a different USB port the second time, so I'll have to give that a try with the longer cable too.

Click to expand...

Just an update in case anyone else finds this interesting. The issue has re-appeared. It seems to go away when shooting in P mode (and perhaps Av and Tv modes too), but in M mode it is very much present still even when shooting with a shorter USB extension cable. I must have mistakenly tested the camera in P mode with the shorter cable in my previous post.

What software are you using for tethering?

deanimator said:

What software are you using for tethering?

Click to expand...

Canon EOS Utility (v2 I think).

A little update regarding my method: I found a workaround using Av mode, where I can use the custom function to fix the shutter speed at 1/200. In Av mode, the live view doesn't cut out and I don't need to wiggle the cursor over the shutter-release on screen (as I had to do in M mode, for some very strange reason) to reactivate the live view feed.

David Naylor said:

deanimator said:

What software are you using for tethering?

Click to expand...

Canon EOS Utility (v2 I think).

A little update regarding my method: I found a workaround using Av mode, where I can use the custom function to fix the shutter speed at 1/200. In Av mode, the live view doesn't cut out and I don't need to wiggle the cursor over the shutter-release on screen (as I had to do in M mode, for some very strange reason) to reactivate the live view feed.

Click to expand...

Sounds like a software issue.

I do tethered focus bracketing with a Canon T4i tethered to an ASUS Zen 8 tablet using DSLR Controller. I don't have the problem you've experienced.