Canon R5 - major tethering problems - need urgent help

Initially I would do as Canon suggest and see what happens with EOS utility and use the Canon cable. If that works reliably, then change the cable and use yours. Next use the Canon cable with Capture One.

Has anything changed with Capture One?

Sorry to hear of your trouble.  My R5 worked perfectly with C1 until about a year ago when it won't be recognized by C1.  I tried everything.  Even reseting the camera.  That worked one time and then it won't be recognized again.  However, what I did for the last year that worked was this:  Plug the camera into the computer, Turn on C1, then turn on the R5.  It will not be recognized, but then Quit C1 and turn it back on.  It might take a few seconds (maybe 8 sometimes), but it would tether as if there had been no problem.  Try that sequence. It might help.

Now, two weeks ago I was on location and that did not work for me.  Instead I got an error 70 message that could not be cleared.  Fortunately, I was just doing headshots and the R6 was adequate.  Also, fortunately, the Canon Service Center was on the way home. They turned the camera around in 3 business days and now it works like originally:  C1 locks in within one second.  They didn't tell me what they did (no charge), but it's great.  If you send it in, make sure to use the record settings function.  I was so worried about have all my custom settings lost!  But it worked like a charm!  I just had to re input the copyright info.

Good luck!  Maybe you can get Canon to treat it as a error 70 problem, even though it hasn't shown up yet...

OH MY GOD. This is literally the story of MY life and I have been struggling with this for monthssss.

I am also professional photographer working for major institutions and museums shooting art and objects for those museums and my work requires speed, accuracy and a reliable camera. Industry standard for commercial work is capture one and even if it wasn’t industry standard if it’s the program you work in then your camera should work with that program.

I feel that I have really been pushed around on this topic and to hear that it’s not just a me issue is totally changing how I want to now approach this. But honestly it’s caused such an issue for me on jobs and then the personal stress, plus not to mention how unprofessional it is to show up to shoots and your equipment not work. The clients aren’t paying you to have camera issues, and we aren’t paying canon to have cameras that have issues!

I bought this camera from a local camera store. I told them right away hey something is wrong with this camera it’s not working right. I had a canon 5D mark iv and same laptop and capture one set up and everything worked fine. Now I switch to the R5 and it’s not working. So they said ok try all these things - all the things you said they made you try - none of them worked for me (and it’s comical that they think using that short cord plugged into a laptop is reasonable… like come on….and to shoot through their program, export, edit, etc is not feasible. It’s not seamless. Ok I’m digressing here. Ugh the frustration. So they had me try everything they said to you PLUS they were like maybe it’s the tether cords so I bought more and tried them, then I bought the extra speed transfer component for tether cord, then I bought the tether block bc they thought maybe it was slipping out and losing connection, then they thought well maybe it’s YOUR laptop and I was like ya right my laptop is a super nice MacBook Pro and I didn’t have this issue with the Previous canon camera. The problem came overnight and nothing changed but the camera - so it’s clear the camera is the issue. But none the less I entertained them - I tried it out on other MacBooks - still happened. By this point I’ve sunk in like 5 hours just doing all the things they suggested - to no avail.

Then the shop said hey we have a canon rep in today why don’t you bring your camera in. So I did. And he played around with it and said yes somethings definitely wrong with it, let me work with ____ (manager of the store - let’s just call him George) let me work with George and he will let you know. When George got back to me and told me what the rep said it was this: we don’t know what the problem is or what to tell you. I replied: I want a refund then because this is ridiculous I can’t work like this. They said we can offer you $4,500 in store credit - not a refund - store credit and I originally paid $5,000 before tax. They want me to eat $500 for a camera that does not work. And that in order for this to work I have to have all the plastic parts/styrofoam that was inside the box when I bought the camera or they wouldn’t take it back. I’m like first of all are you joking - it’s not like you’re restocking it so you need the box and all those little plastic things - IT DOES NOT WORK - it NEEDS TO GO BACK TO CANON TO BE FIXED…or thrown out. So why do you need the plastic container for this deal. And when I said I didn’t think this deal was fair of them keeping $500 when the camera is here because it does not work and hasn’t worked from the get go but now I have to pay for that? They said hey look we are doing you a favor here, we don’t normally do this, we are taking this back it’s way past the return window and that’s a favor. And I was just thinking omg don’t even get me started - “you don’t normally take back cameras that you sold that do not work that the customer told you from day one that something is wrong with and you ask them to do ALL these things - which they do - none of them work - and so naturally they want their money back and you tell them ok but we are keeping $500 and your remaining money doesn’t go to you for your to spend where or how you’d like - it’s going to go to a store credit that you’ll have to spend here”. Nice favor.

So also - I picked the R5 because of its megapixels and bc I’ve always been a canon supporter. Lots of money spent there - and they truly aren’t taking care of this how they should. But I want to say - they let me try an r6 and it had no problems. So they were like oh here just switch to the r6 then and I was like um no…I want the megapixel count that’s why I upgraded from the canon 5d mark iv to the R5 in the first place.

So I bought this new R5 camera and 5 lenses and now I’m up a creek without a paddle bc I don’t have a body that works to use those lenses. So I’m already losing because the body doesn’t work and they want to keep $500 from the original cost I paid. Plus now on the side I have to figure out how to sell these lenses and will never make back what I spent even though some of the lenses are in unopened boxes.

I mean at this point canon HAS to know that this is an issue bc clearly it’s happening to people. So they should be handling this and those of us who are loyal customers much better.

We should join forces on this because with two people saying the same exact thing happened to both of us is clear it is not a fluke it is a problem THEY need to take accountability for. And maybe some of the other people in the thread who have had similar issues will also join in. Because at least with two people they are more likely to listen than just one person - who they can corner and say to them - not our problem it’s clearly your other technology not our product.

I bought this camera from a local camera store. I told them right away hey something is wrong with this camera it’s not working right. I had a canon 5D mark iv and same laptop and capture one set up and everything worked fine. Now I switch to the R5 and it’s not working.... The problem came overnight and nothing changed but the camera - so it’s clear the camera is the issue. But none the less I entertained them - I tried it out on other MacBooks - still happened. By this point I’ve sunk in like 5 hours just doing all the things they suggested - to no avail.

R5 allows fairly high wattage USB-C PD charging. Some laptops detect too much power draw from a peripheral device an can interrupt function.

" I got the Tether tools USB-A 3.0 to USB C connection and apparently, it cannot use the self-charging option with this type of connection, ergo no more issues. But it is unique to this camera."

Liiszu wrote:

Let me set the scene: I am a photographer working for a major fashion brand, shooting mostly packshots and e-commerce. That means I need a good, but reliable camera, since I am working a lot with deadlines and speed and accuracy are important. I use an HP ZBook Fury G7 with Windows 10 as the operating system. I tether using the Tether Tools TetherPro USB-C to USB-C cable. My image editing program is Capture One, where I shoot directly.

I must say I've had problems with tethering to the camera from the start (it's been a month now). In the beginning, the camera would, after every 2-10 minutes, disconnect (camera icon turning dark in the CO program), and when I tried simply switching the camera off and back on, the camera upper display would say "saving" images. The only way I could resolve this was by taking the battery out and starting the whole cycle again. Then I got the firmware updated and my laptop got more power (because I thought it was a power issue since the R5 has the charging feature which annoyingly can't be turned off) and for a week or two, I had practically no issues. Until today, when I almost wanted to pull my hair out. I received a new desk, and so there was a lot of disconnecting and reconnecting the cables and moving things around. After about 30 minutes of shooting the problem started again, where the camera just would not tether to my laptop, although I could see it was connected to the computer. Nothing I did would fix it - not unplugging the USB, not restarting by taking the battery off, not by switching it on and off.

I contacted Canon support and I must say I got a very non-helpful and non-empathetic response. First of all, they tried to get me to download the EOS Utility program, even though I told them I need to use the image editing software Capture One and my workflow does not allow me to first shoot photos, then transfer and then edit. It just. doesn't. work. like. that. Then the guy said that there is a cable included with the camera that is perfect for tethering and is developed for this camera, and rather arrogantly suggested that since I am using a third-party USB cable (which is industry recognized?!?) I might not receive the support I need. Again, I had to tell him the cable does not serve my needs, as it is way too short (I can of course try the extension cable tomorrow) - he seemed to display a complete lack of understanding of what kind of people might be using their camera, other than people who go out and shoot directly on the card.

Has anyone else heard of or encountered this problem? I have contacted Tether Tools and they said this seems to be an issue with the Canon R5 specifically, could be a firmware issue related to the power consumption. He recommended turning off the charging via cable option but was also aware that the R5 does not seem to have that possibility.

-camera is on airplane mode

-firmware is up to date.

Please, any help is welcome. I am at my wits end, and my deadline is looming....

As cable length increases, capacitance and resistance also usually increases. This means that data speed and reliability decreases as cable length increases for a given data protocol and cable technology. The Canon cable included with the camera might work better because it is shorter. If it works with the Canon cable and not with a longer cable, this is possibly the problem. The maximum length for the highest USB speeds is very short according to the standard. Forcing a slower USB speed by connecting through an adaptor might allow a longer cable.

While I do not know about the USB port on your laptop, It might work to connect the camera through a docking station that is powered separately from the laptop and repeats the USB signal to permit a greater transmission distance.

I hope some of this might help.

John

PicPocket wrote:

someone mentioned the special USB-A to C cable or the boost adapter to deal with power stability requirements.

Hi- I'm wondering if OP, Liiszu, or Jc_stl_92 ever landed on a solution to this quandary. ?

I've just purchased the R5C and am planning to tether shoot for product photos.  Wondering if the USB A to USBC solution provided any answers...

Thanks,

Sorry - no help here I'm in the same boat. I'm the lead on model photographer at a good size studio with over 20 R5s connected to iMac Pros. We've tried every cable we can get our hands on and have constant issues with the usb connection. We have piles of brand new cables and switching to new ones does not help. We are able to always get the connection back by turning off the camera, taking the battery out and in and turning the camera back on. Sometimes also have to restart Capture One. We use powered usb C hubs so that there are no power draw issues but that hasn't mattered either way.  We are also on the latest v1.7 firmware.  Tethering and overheating issues have been pretty awful with the R5.

I can con confirm that over the last two days in 3 photo bays that switching to our older Type A USB 3.0 active extension cables has fixed the tethering issues.  We use the cheap monoprice Type A extensions as they are the same cable as tether tools.  Side note - don't ever believe the Tether Tools hype on their cables.  They are just rebranded cables that are 1/5th the price.

What really bugs me about this solution is that it uses 5Gb/s cables vs what's supposed to be 10Gb/s even though I don't really believe that the Type C tethering cables were actually providing 10Gb/s connections.  I just ordered some USB 3.1 Gen 2 10Gb/s Type A optical cables to test out actual time differences of images loading into Capture One from the Canon R5 and the Fuji GFX100s. Next will be testing Type A USB 3.0 5gb/s cables vs Type A USB 3.1 Gen 2 optical 10Gb/s cables vs Type C Usb 3.1 10Gb/s cables on a Mac Studio.  The type C issues are so disappointing when I was sold the magic of the 1 connector to rule them all and it has been a disaster with +15ft cables. Not sure if it's an issue with the R5's handling of USB C 3.1 or the cable manufacturers?

Wow, this helps me so much, I thought I was going crazy!  I will monitor this thread for updates.  I'm using R5 with MacBook Pro with M1 Max processor.  I thought my issues may have been Lightroom related as it has to restart in Rosetta mode to use tethering.

Some items that have "helped" - I bought a DC adaptor for the camera so I don't need to change batteries.  It's another annoying cord, but it lets you keep rolling if it's working.  It works more consistently with a fresh restart and a new LR catalogue.  I thought it was card related at one point, but it happened today with a smaller card.  I'm using a Tether tools cord - same issue with the extender or no extender.

I have been trouble shooting with small low stress jobs hoping to get this to a rock solid point, but I'm fighting this inconsistent issue.

rstebler wrote:

I can con confirm that over the last two days in 3 photo bays that switching to our older Type A USB 3.0 active extension cables has fixed the tethering issues. We use the cheap monoprice Type A extensions as they are the same cable as tether tools. Side note - don't ever believe the Tether Tools hype on their cables. They are just rebranded cables that are 1/5th the price.

What really bugs me about this solution is that it uses 5Gb/s cables vs what's supposed to be 10Gb/s even though I don't really believe that the Type C tethering cables were actually providing 10Gb/s connections. I just ordered some USB 3.1 Gen 2 10Gb/s Type A optical cables to test out actual time differences of images loading into Capture One from the Canon R5 and the Fuji GFX100s. Next will be testing Type A USB 3.0 5gb/s cables vs Type A USB 3.1 Gen 2 optical 10Gb/s cables vs Type C Usb 3.1 10Gb/s cables on a Mac Studio. The type C issues are so disappointing when I was sold the magic of the 1 connector to rule them all and it has been a disaster with +15ft cables. Not sure if it's an issue with the R5's handling of USB C 3.1 or the cable manufacturers?

A longer wire has more capacitance than a shorter wire. That means that it takes longer or requires more power to move the signal level from low to high or from high to low. All else equal, one can get faster speeds over a shorter wire. Once upon a time long ago, I asked a contractor to force ethernet speed to 10mbs instead of 100mbs over a long wire and ended up getting better data speeds even though the contractor thought that the specs were the same for the two speeds.

if a type A USB connector will result in negotiation of a slower speed, then one might get faster transfers over a longer cable with a type A connector instead of type C. But, I am just speculating because it has been a long time since I have looked at the specification. You could read the specification yourself and make some guesses about how well the various hardware implements the specification and then choose cable length. Else, if a longer run is needed, then maybe the USB data stream could be encapsulated in another protocol and sent over glass fibre optics so that length does not matter. The higher level data communication protocol might also matter, for example it is SCSI for USB storage, but I do not know what the camera or the iMac try to use. Reading about how the protocol resends lost data might help with thinking about transmission speed versus throughput with some the data being resent possibly several times.

Data transmission depends upon capacitance, resistance, and the magnitude of voltage swings in the transmission medium.

I hope these old stories might be helpful to someone.

Same problem for me for months. Intermittent but Very annoying. 
I use a 4.6m / 15 ft Tether Tools usb-c to usb-c cable, a MacBook and Lightroom. 
As this really bothered me in a shoot yesterday, I did more research, and now I am trying the suggestion to remove the memory cards and it seems to be working.

I Started by removing only the sd card (as the bottle neck), which made the occurrences less frequent and also the reconnecting process faster. Without any card in the camera, no interruptions in my half an hour test. 
I will test again and report. But I’m excited about it! While not an ideal solution, it is such a relief to enjoy tethering as it should be.

Has anyone tried a Thunderbolt 3 or 4 certified cable? They may not be long enough for your use case, but if they work reliably, it may help confirm that the issues are with the cables you have been using.

I was having intermittent issues with a USB-C Drive on my computer. After changing to a Thunderbolt cable, the issues went away…

Jon

R5 / Latest LRC / DC camera power battery adaptor / Tether Tools long cable / MacBook Pro fully charged and on charging cable.

Okay - I have had success two shoots in a row. Key: laptop at 100% power and plugged in to charger. Camera: using a DC battery-less adaptor (such as https://www.amazon.ca/Adapter-Gonine-Coupler-Battery-Replacement/dp/B01D68YXOQ/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=1HPHGAAYIHAO5&keywords=e6+adaptor+dc&qid=1676822942&sprefix=e6+edaptor+dc%2Caps%2C148&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEyTjZWTzdVT0tFV0ZIJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNzMzNDg5MjZNQ1JKQlhPVzc4UyZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNjIwMTcyWUxYR0pGOVEzNzFGJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==)

This takes the charging aspect of the USB C out of the picture.

Also updated recent Lightroom so it doesn't need the Rosetta(?) emulator.

So far so good.  It's one more cable for the power on camera, but I have yet to have an issue.

This for me also answered why it was intermittent, as it could have been how charged batteries were in laptop or camera.

Still working to confirm, but this is the biggest breakthrough I've had so wanted to update here.