Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

Mike,
I've just tried an external USB card reader on my XP PC and Vista laptop. FP does not auto open when a card is inserted. The standard Windows dialogue opens instead. All is OK. with the built-in reader on the PC. That's USB connected too, inside the box.
Is there any way to override the Windows pop-up so FlashPipe opens instead?
Terry.

Take a look at "My Computer" and see which drives are there.  Then insert a card in the card reader: does a new drive appear?  Some card readers don't make a drive letter until you plug them in.  I need to know if the drive appears when you insert the card but disappears when you remove it.  If so, I may need to make some adjustment in the way FlashPipe detects drives.  Of course, for now, you can just "point" FlashPipe to it manually.

Mike

Mike,
On My Computer, the external card reader appears as 4 separate drives - "Removable Disc G, H, I and J" initially.
When I plug the CF card in, H changes to "EOS_DIGITAL (H)"
When the card is removed, it reverts to "Removable Disc (H)"

Terry.

When you click "Edit", "Settings" and look at the drives FlashPipe will monitor, is H: in the list?  And is it checked?

Mike

Yes, they are all there and checked, 4 from the build-in reader and 4 from the external reader, including "H".
Terry.

Boy that's strange.  If H is in the list and checked, it means FlashPipe is monitoring it.  As soon as you put a flash card in that drive, FlashPipe should be able to see the "DCIM" or "PRIVATE" folders and that will prompt it to open up.  When you go to H: after inserting it into the reader, do you see the DCIM folder there?

Mike

Yes, see attached.
Terry.

Mike,
I'll have to shut down now, it's late here. I'll pick up any more questions tomorrow.
Terry.

OK.  Thanks for all the help.  Since you'll be up before me, I'll leave these thoughts for you to see.  Given the information that you've given me, I can only see two ways that FlashPipe wouldn't open.  One, and this is probably the most likely, is that when you insert the card the operating system is changing the status of that drive from "removable" to "non removable".  FlashPipe only monitors removable disks so if that drive changes from removable (when the card is out) to non-removable (when the card is in), then FlashPipe won't see it.  To check this theory, right click on the "F" in your system tray and select "Exit" to close FP.  Now insert that card into the H: drive and restart FP by clicking on the desktop icon.  Go to "Edit", "Settings".  Does H: still show on the list?  If not, the drive type is being changed when media is inserted which should not be the case.

The second theory would be maybe you have media in some other drive and FlashPipe only deals with one card at a time.  I don't think that's the case though or you would have mentioned it.

Thanks again,
Mike

Mike-

My internal reader does the same thing.  That brings up another question.  Does FP see two folders on one CF and download both or does that have to be done manually?

The same thing as what?  You see the drive in the list of drives on FlashPipe's settings page but FlashPipe doesn't open when you insert the card?

On the folder question: yes, FlashPipe sees everything on the card.  It finds every folder that has files, regardless of the folder location!  You can hide files 16 folders deep and FP will still find them.  :)

Mike

Look at my attachment on reply #6, you can see 2 folders on the card there. Both folders were downloaded. There are more folders on the card but they are empty.
Terry.

Mike,
Yes, H does still shows in the list. I checked with my XP desktop and Vista laptop.
Is it something to do with the firmware in the card reader?
I might try to borrow another card reader to see what that does.
Terry.

I remembered, I have a Sony Ericsson phone with a 3Mp camera; it has a small internal memory and a mini 2GB memory stick.
A little saga followed.
Firstly I USB connected the phone to the PC via one of it's front USB sockets and FlashPipe opened on the internal memory K drive.
I then Safely Removed K and the memory stick L opened in FlashPipe. All good and the same applied when I tried on the laptop.

I next connected the phone via a USB socket in the external card reader (it's dual purpose) and all worked as it should with FlashPipe.

Finally,  tried a CF card again in the external card reader, and lo and behold, FlashPipe opened as it should, both on PC and laptop.  :o

After all that it seems there was some sort of hardware/firmware problem with the card reader that righted itself in some way.  ???
Nothing is wrong with FlashPipe then  :)

Terry.

Ugh.  Thanks for all the testing but we programmers don't like it when stuff just goes away.  ;)  Could you please try rebooting the machine and then see if FlashPipe still works normally on the card reader?  If so, then I might be more willing to declare that it was a card reader/firmware issue.  Did you update the firmware BTW?  You mentioned it but never said that you updated it.

Second thought: shut the machine down entirely and restart it.  A reboot doesn't power down the peripherals but a full shutdown does.

Thanks,
Mike

There must be some logic in this somewhere.
I've re-booted but only just seen your second thought. I'll have to do that later.
All was still ok. after a normal re-boot.
No, no update, again I'll have a look later to see if I can find an update.
Watch this space.
Terry.

Mike,
I've done that now and all works ok. I can't find any firmware, it's an obscure make I think  ::)
I started all this to check FlashPipe and the card reader with my laptop in readiness for a short holiday at the end of the month, I just hope it continues to work ok.

I have a couple of other comments but will post on a new thread.
Terry.

From v104 announcement
Mike,
I assume this is related to the issues I had, in some way?
Terry

Probably not since your issue went away.  This was just from my own testing: prior versions wouldn't auto-open if you did something like start FlashPipe before you plug in your card reader.

Mike