SD and iSight No Go...

[Peace Freak]

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)

[dnanian]

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.

[Peace Freak]

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...

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

Originally Posted by dnanian

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.

[dnanian]

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.

[gijohn]

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.

[dnanian]

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)...

[gijohn]

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".

[dnanian]

This was connected to a powered hub?

[gijohn]

Yes it was Dave.

[dnanian]

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

[gijohn]

Originally Posted by dnanian

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.