Problem

When opening Shutter Stream (version 4.0 or higher) it is difficult to connect to the camera.  Sometimes it takes a very long time: actually, it's been more then 30 minutes searching for the camera. I tried to quit, but nothing happened,  still searching. Do you have an idea why?

Solution

There are several possible issues: 

  1. First, it might be that you've enabled the Sony camera search and you don't have a Sony camera.
  2. Second, is that the Nikon camera search is enabled, but you don't have a Nikon camera and you are on a Mac.
  3. Third, is that you have a Nikon camera, but the search takes a long time to find your camera, as it searches for the other potential Nikon cameras and you are on a Mac.

All these potential issues are discussed below.

Disable Sony Camera

The issue most likely has to do with the fact that you've enabled the Sony camera search.  Sony uses a network connection to the camera and we save that setting to an INI file in order to more quickly reconnect the next time you start.  However, if the camera is not available the next time our software will wait attempting to connect.  The solution is to disable the Sony camera support if you do not have a Sony camera and if you do, make sure it's connected and powered on and its IP settings have not been changed.

Here are the step-by-step instructions to disabling Sony support:

Option 1 (suggested):

Open Shutter Stream Software, click option area (top right corner blue gear wheel), select 'About' from the drop down list and click 'Disable Sony Camera Searching' - this will deactivate the software searching for a Sony camera during start up.

Option 2:

  1. In version 4.0, if you've ever connected to a Sony camera, that camera's connection settings are saved in ShutterStream.ini. In order to connect to a new Sony camera, or a camera where the IP settings might have changed, you'll have to remove the Sony section from the INI file. The INI file is found here:

    Win: C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\IconaSys\ShutterStream\ShutterStream.ini
    Mac: /Users/<USERNAME>/Library/Application Support/ShutterStream/ShutterStream.ini

  2. Please make sure you disable the Sony camera by editing this section or removing it completely

    [SonyCamera]
    UseSonyCamera=false

Disable Nikon Camera Search

The Mac Nikon SDK seems to be extremely challenged in searching for the Nikon cameras.  What we mean by this is that in its search for the Nikon cameras the SDK iterates through various camera models and these iterations seem to take an extremely long time, especially on a Mac computer.  Therefore, if you do not have a Nikon camera, you can disable the Nikon search on Mac.

If you have a non-Nikon camera and you'd like to disable the Nikon camera search on Mac, follow these steps:

  1. Right click on the ShutterStream.app and select Show Package Contents:
  2. Rename libNkPTPDriver2.dylib to libNkPTPDriver2.dylib.old. This will force Shutter Stream to not search for Nikon cameras.


Search Only for Your Nikon Camera

If you have a Nikon camera, on a Mac, you can speed up the search for your Nikon camera by disabling all other Nikon modules that are not needed:

  1. Right click on the ShutterStream.app and select Show Package Contents:
  2. Remove all the other Nikon modules (their names start with Type*), except for the Nikon module for your camera.
    In the screenshot below, let's assume that our module is Type0001. Then all the other Type* modules can be deleted.
  3. To determine the module needed for your camera, go to this KB: Nikon Native SDK Tests For ShutterStream 4
    and search for your camera model. Assume it's D850, for the sake of our example.
  4. Download the S-SDKD850-001BF-ALLIN.zip module and unzip it, as shown in the image in that article.
  5. Go to the Sample program for the SDK and determine the Type* module that the sample SDK is using. That will be the module used by your camera.
  6. Keep only that module and delete the rest.
  7. Your search for the Nikon camera should now start and end much faster.


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