pedz
•
Regular Member
•
Posts: 163
My Canon utilities adventures on macOS Ventura
1 month ago
1
TL; DR — Does anyone know a way to open a bug report with Canon about their Mac software?
I have a Canon EOS R5 with version 1.7 firmware and a Canon EOS R5 C with version 1.0.1.1 (one level out dated) firmware. I have an M1 Mac running the latest 13.2 Ventura.
I spent basically all of yesterday trying to get the EOS Utility, EOS Utility 3, and EOS Network Setting Tool to work.
First, to get the Canon utilities such as "EOS Utility 3", you must pick a version of macOS other than Ventura on the Canon support web site. The version I have of the Canon utilities is 3.16.1.3.
The EOS Network Setting Tool does not seem to work at all. A thread in the Canon Community Forums says that that tool is just for the WFT-R10A which may be true but when I start the EOS Utility 3 application and go to "Camera Settings" (in the main window) => "Network Settings", Utility 3 exists and launches the Network Setting Tool.
For me, the Network Setting Tool never lights up the button to save the settings to the camera. Also, the load button never finds any settings that the camera has.
I eventually brow beat the EOS Utility 3 into submission. At this point, I can connect the R5 and the R5 C via USB-C to the Mac, turn the camera on, and most of the time (not 100%), EOS Utility 3 will launch and it will automatically transfer the images from the R5 to the laptop at the desired location. With the R5 C, the launch occurs but it can not find any videos so my guess is that it looks only in the DCIM folder. The R5 C puts the videos in the CRM folder ( and other folders if I recall correctly). The net is that the R5 C will transfer the still images but not the videos (which makes it mostly useless for me).
How I got this to work I honestly have no idea. I worked for a long time trying to get the FTP to work and I finally got it to connect and start a transfer but the transfer never finished. This was an extremely slow iterative process where it would connect sometimes and sometimes not. It would log in sometimes and sometimes not. Etc. So… I might be able to get a successful FTP transfer to occur via WiFi but I don’t have any hope that it would work as my main work flow. There seems to be a 4 minute wait from the time you say "start" to the time it decides to actually do something. Even with successful connects and log ins, it was always taking 4 to 5 minutes.
Then, at some point, I had the R5 connected to the laptop via USB-C and clicked it on and the EOS Utility 3 launched and transferred my images. This is after setting the Settings up to do this but when I tried it originally it did not work. I would connect the camera and start Utility 3 but it would just come up to the main screen.
I now have an icon in my menu bar for the EOS Utility and the pull down has “Start EOS Utility automatically when the camera is connected” checked. I believe it is EOS Utility (but not Utility 3) that puts items in the System Settings => General => Login Items which I have deleted a few times (trying to clean up and start back over from scratch) but each time I launch EOS Utility it adds it back in. I currently can not readily reboot because I have some long running processes I don’t want to stop so it isn’t clear if my current set up will work after I reboot. Another side note: As best I can recall, I never launched EOS Utility by clicking on it. It would launch when I was mucking with the "Remote Control" (see below) option in the R5.
Side note: I purchased FileZilla server. They also have a client. The server seems fairly complete. And I tested the server via another computer to get it set up properly. The software is free but the manual is $20. You can probably get by without the manual but I like supporting software like this.
I also fiddled with the “Remote Control (EOS Utility)” menu item in the R5 camera. It tends to launch the EOS Utility — not the EOS Utility 3. It appears as if EOS Utility is triggered and launched and then, if all goes well — which never seems to happen, it launches EOS Utility 3.
As the first sentence says, part of my quest is to contact Canon. I have a speech impediment and don’t want to call. And I would rather write up the whole adventure and send it as an email rather than “chat” with a support person. If anyone knows a viable way to do that, please let me know.
And, if anyone has any wisdom to add to these ramblings, that would be interesting as well.