SD and iSight No Go...
 

I would like to report that I tried for several days to use SuperDuper but it would freeze after running a short time. I thought it might be copying a big file and would come back half an hour later but it would be stuck in the same place... The Finder would sometimes also freeze and I would have to restart.

I tried everything, fixing permissions, re-installing SD, running Cocktail... all to no avail.

Then I remembered reading somewhere that that some software is not 'comfortable' with the iSight connected. So I disconnected my iSight camera and everything worked fine!

I wonder if this is actually a problem with iSight or with SD...

Anyway, I hope it can be resolved with the next version of SD!

(OS 10.4.4 on a PowerMac G4 1.25 Ghz)

Hi, Peace Freak. SuperDuper! doesn't run at a low-level, and doesn't know in any way that the iSight is connected. But -- in some situations -- your iSight (and other FireWire devices, especially bus-powered ones) can interfere with aggressive use of the FireWire bus.

If you place the iSight on its own "bus", connected to a powered FireWire hub, with the drive connected directly to the computer, that might resolve the issue. But it's not something we can fix in SuperDuper! itself... it's a hardware thing.

SD and iSight No Go...
 

Hi,

I will buy a hub and give it a try and get back to you.

Might I suggest you make a mention of this in your FAQ section so that others can be made aware of the situation.

Thanks for the response...

++++++++++++++++++

It's worth a try.

The problem is that it doesn't happen to all users with iSights, so it's hard to make it a FAQ... but, I'll see what I can do to make it more explicit in a future revision of the User's Guide.

Note that the problems aren't necessarily just with iSights... that's why the 'guide is more general when it suggests simplifying FireWire.

Add me to the list of Superduper and iSight users with a problem. (minor I guess).

Backing up everyday to a LaCie firewire plugged in the front of my G5. My iSight is plugged in to the back of my 23" display. About 30-60 seconds after my backup is complete ... the iSight shuts off.

Will try and plug the iSight in to my powered hub and see if I get any better results.

Yep. There's little we can do about this, as it's a hardware problem between the Mac, the iSight and FireWire drives when they share the same bus (not necessarily port)...

Here's an update to my previous post. I'm backing up 3 partitions to a LaCie external. Two of the partitions I back up every day, Monday thru Friday. The 3rd partition (boot partition) I only back up every Friday. I have it set to do a Repair Permissions.

Today (Friday) it backed up my boot drive last and after everything was done, iSight was still "ready, willing and able".

This was connected to a powered hub?

Yes it was Dave.

Great. Glad that worked around the issue for you -- let's hope it's consistent! :)

Exactly - just for giggles I'm going to try and hook it back in to the monitor and see what happens. :confused: