Plug & Play problem

[John B. Nelson]

Hi. This is my first post on here. I've been a proud owner of the XH A1 for about 3 weeks now and I'm really happy with its performance so far. I've been visiting this forum for over month now and have read dozens of messages that were very helpful to me. I think it's great that there are so many XH A1 owners on here that are willing to share their knowledge and help people with their problems. To those I say thank you. It is greatly apreciated. I hope one day I will be able to contribute and share my knowledge as well.

I do have a problem I would like to address that is driving me crazy. I posted this problem on other forums (Vista forums) but have not recieved any solutions so maybe someone here can help.

The problem is that my computer will not recognize the XH A1 when I plug it into my IEEE 0394 port.

It did the first time I plugged the XH A1 in. It went through the normal "found hardware" routine and installed a driver for it. But what happened was that when I went to capture video via Ulead VideoStudio it didn't work. At the time I didn't know what the problem was (it was a software issue) so I went to turn the camera off to troubleshoot. But instead of turning it to the off position, I accidently turned the dial to external mode. What happened next was that Windows Vista kicked out a dialog box that read something like.. "New hardware found. Windows is deleting current driver." I had no option to stop this action and it deleted the driver and attempted to load a new one, which of course doesn't exist. So since that first episode whenever I plug the camera into my computer nothing happens. The "Video In" flashes on the camera screen and the camera is not present in the device manager. I've spent hours on the phone with Canon but they are clueless.

Interestingly though, I can get the computer to see the XH A1 if I use the ADVC110 converter box as an "in between." In other words, if I plug the ADVC110 into the IEEE 0394 port on my computer and then plug the XH A1 into the IEEE 0394 port on the ADVC110, bingo; the computer sees the XH A1 and its there in the device manager as well.

While this workaround is useable, it's still a pain connecting everything up everytime I want to capture my video. I would very much like to resolve this issue but I think this is a Vista issue so I'm probally screwed. I did everything from restoring my computer to earlier dates to talking to the Canon and Dell people for hours at a time on the phone.

Other than that though, so far I have been successful in taking some good video, capturing it using HDVSPlit and editing it with Adobe Premiere Elements with some great results. I'm still working on finding a good solution to export to DVD, so when I finally get a decent work flow I will share it with you.

Thank you for reading this.

-John

[Chris Soucy]

Gonna be displaying my total ignorance of Vista here (stop laughing at the back there...) but this may just be worth giving a shot.

The following is XP speak, I don't know the Vista ones.

Go to Control Panel, Hardware, Device Control and scroll down till you reach the IEEE 1394 Bus Host Controllers. Double click on it, then whatever appears under it. Click on the "Driver" tab. In XP it gives you a number of driver options - if Vista gives you the same, there's both Rollback and Uninstall. Try Rollback and see if that solves your problem.

If not, try uninstalling it. Re - boot and try the camera again.

The worst that can happen is you lose your Firewire!

Anyone got any better ideas?


Cheers,


Chris

[John B. Nelson]

One of the things Dell had me try was to update the IEEE 0394 driver which I did. The driver is RICHOH OHCI Complimant IEEE 0394 Host controller as opposed to the OCHI Complimant IEEE 0394 which was the original, I'm assuming anyway. I tried both, your suggestion and trying to update again but no go.

I am really tempted to do an uninstall but I am afraid of losing the firewire. I would think restarting the computer it would see it and install the device, but I dont trust Vista at all, so I'm leary.

Oh yea.. I'm not laughing. Ok, maybe a little.... hehe

[Gert Kracht]

Hi John,

This looks like a 'combination' error.
The drivers of your 1394 port are not recognising the A1 and it will stay that way.

You can solve it by searching for other (newer) 1394 port drivers or use the external ADVX110 box like you do that right now.

I had a similar problem with an USB port. We had some ethernet converters to USB which did not work on our laptops with USB2 ports. Unless we used a USB hub.
The protocol of USB and firewire is different but the function is almost the same. (firewire is better for video).

You also could try to install Windows XP. Those drivers are older but they work. Vista has many issues with hardware and software. I think that will be solved after a few months. (As they were with Windows XP when it was introduced)

Canon can't do anything about this. This is purely a hardware/software issue.

Good luck with searching for a good solution and if you found it, please let us know.


Gert

[John B. Nelson]

Will do Gert, for sure. Thanks.

[Chris Soucy]

John, you may have tried this but what the heck.

If you highlight that OHCD controller in device Manager, it will allow you to right click on it. One of the options is "Uninstall", this removes it entirely. It may well on a re - boot re - build the driver data base correctly.

Worth a try or already tried?

Cheers,

Chris

[John B. Nelson]

Chris, I haven't tried that yet. It's a good idea, it sounds like a logical solution.. but... what do I do if when I restart and it doesn't see the IEEE 0394? My wife will probally have to call 911 and give me CPR!

[Chris Soucy]

If you want to get really down and dirty, you could always dive into your system BIOS on startup, disable the IEEE 1394 controller completely, let it boot up thus re - building your driver DB, take it back down, re - enable the controller in the BIOS and see if it gets it right on startup.

Cheers,


Chris

[John B. Nelson]

Nope, that's definitly way over my head there. Makes me nervous even thinking about doing something like that. I might try doing an uninstall though and see what happens. Or maybe not....

[Chris Soucy]

You might actually get to enjoy it!

Go on, you know you want to.

Cheers,


Chris

[Chris Soucy]

Might be an idea, if you do any of the uninstalls/ disables to have the camera connected and running on the re- start(s) - doesn't give it a lot of options when it comes time to select drivers.

Not that Windows really needs any excuse.

Cheers,


Chris

[John B. Nelson]

Theoretically speaking, after uninstalling a device, when you restart, it should recognize the device as long as the device is working and installed on the puter. I remember having a problem with a CD/DVD drive once, and I fixed it by uninstalling and then reinstalling it after startup. But that was XP, this is Vista or in other words, Trouble.

I'm not very happy with the Vista OS, it's constantly giving me problems and I don't recomend anyone going that route at this time. Stick with XP for now. I wish I could install XP but that's not possible so I have to wait for Microsoft to get their act together.

Anyway, that's why I'm real leary about doing anything so drastic at this time. I mean I can still capture video using the method I'm doing now.. if I try to do an uninstall or something even more dramatic and end up losing my firewire connection then I'm really screwed.

Has anyone tried this method to resolve this or simular issue?

-John

[Chris Soucy]

John, found this buried in the MS Vista section - may be the answer, may not. Worth checking out anyway:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930495/en-us

Good luck.


Cheers,


Chris

[John B. Nelson]

Chris, thanks for trying to help me out here. I really apreciate this. I apologize for laughing back there.. hehe.

Anyway, the fix is apparantly for the 64 bit OS. Mine is the 32 bit one. Figures, huh?

I did read there though that Microsoft plans on releasing a service pack for Vista so maybe I will wait for that.

I'm still thinking about doing an uninstall, so when I get the nerve up, I'll do it. I just want to make sure my wife is up to date on her CPR technique just in case.

[Chris Soucy]

from my reading, it applies to both 32 ( x86) & 64 bit versions, but maybe I'm mis - reading it.

But, as you say, a SP may well be landing on a desktop near you soon, which could sort it anyway.

Cheers,


Chris