GilesGuthrie
Staff Emeritus
- 11,038
- Edinburgh, UK
- CMDRTheDarkLord
I wonder if anyone can help. I've visciously abused my mod privileges to post this in Digital Art Help (because it's camera related) and then move it to Computers and Internet. You can petition to have me fired if you wish.
I have a Windows XP Pro system running on an Athlon 3800+ with 1GB RAM. I have three cameras: a Canon EOS 350d, an Olympus C-750UZ and a SonyEriccson K750i.
I've been using the (Canon supplied) Zoombrowser software to transfer images off all three devices into my "Camera Uploads" folder, where it arranges all images into folders by the data on which they were taken. It also reads all the EXIF data and stores it.
Suddenly, my computer started pausing for 4-7 minutes during startup. Yes, you read that correctly. It's after the Login has completed, just as the desktop displays. You can hit CTRL-ALT-DEL to show the Task Manager. In the Processes tab there is very little activity (a little Norton LiveUpdate shenanigans), but CPU and network usage are both 0%, and RAM allocation is steady at around 180MB.
In the Event Viewer, the last action before the pause is a note saying that the "Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) service hung on startup". The next event after the pause is "The Norton LiveUpdate Service was successfully sent a start control". I'm more or less sure that this is not the next event, just that it's taking a long time to record in the Event Log. I'm making this assumption because I see sporadic activity from Norton processes during the pause.
I'm more or less sure that this is a hardware/software interaction problem, but it has arisen in a consistent enviroment: i.e. there have been no installations immediately prior to the problem arising.
I suspected that it could be to do with my iPod, which has had some issues with its disk. But the behaviour is consistent whether or not the iPod is connected.
I removed all of the Canon and Olympus software, and got the pause down from 7 minutes to 4. The WIA service (which is Startup Type: Manual) does not attempt to load when there are no cameras installed. Reinstalling the Canon software has not significantly increased startup time.
Prior to the removal/reinstallation of the Canon software, the computer simply would not talk to any of the cameras. Long periods of inactivity, and statuses of "Not Responding" for both the Zoombrowser and Explorer applications would abound. In the Event Log, multiple instances of "Timed out (30000 milliseconds) waiting for response from stisvc.exe". This is the executable for the aforementioned WIA Service. Notably, the Canon CameraLauncher application starts a process, but it does not appear in the Applications list, or on-screen. (Interestingly, iTunes does this also, but usually appears after 5 minutes).
I've been through with msconfig, switching on services progressively. The system starts up relatively normally, but with much complaining, right up until the point that you enable Plug & Play and WIA. Unfortunately, Microsoft appears somewhat reticent on the issue - the only information on their knowledgebase is pertaining to an all-but-useless wiadebug.log file. Canon's KB is similarly devoid of use.
Has anyone else experienced anything like this? I'd rather not rebuild the computer, but I fear I'm going to have to. Any suggestions that would avoid a rebuild (or a migration to Mac/Linux) would be most gratefully received.
I have a Windows XP Pro system running on an Athlon 3800+ with 1GB RAM. I have three cameras: a Canon EOS 350d, an Olympus C-750UZ and a SonyEriccson K750i.
I've been using the (Canon supplied) Zoombrowser software to transfer images off all three devices into my "Camera Uploads" folder, where it arranges all images into folders by the data on which they were taken. It also reads all the EXIF data and stores it.
Suddenly, my computer started pausing for 4-7 minutes during startup. Yes, you read that correctly. It's after the Login has completed, just as the desktop displays. You can hit CTRL-ALT-DEL to show the Task Manager. In the Processes tab there is very little activity (a little Norton LiveUpdate shenanigans), but CPU and network usage are both 0%, and RAM allocation is steady at around 180MB.
In the Event Viewer, the last action before the pause is a note saying that the "Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) service hung on startup". The next event after the pause is "The Norton LiveUpdate Service was successfully sent a start control". I'm more or less sure that this is not the next event, just that it's taking a long time to record in the Event Log. I'm making this assumption because I see sporadic activity from Norton processes during the pause.
I'm more or less sure that this is a hardware/software interaction problem, but it has arisen in a consistent enviroment: i.e. there have been no installations immediately prior to the problem arising.
I suspected that it could be to do with my iPod, which has had some issues with its disk. But the behaviour is consistent whether or not the iPod is connected.
I removed all of the Canon and Olympus software, and got the pause down from 7 minutes to 4. The WIA service (which is Startup Type: Manual) does not attempt to load when there are no cameras installed. Reinstalling the Canon software has not significantly increased startup time.
Prior to the removal/reinstallation of the Canon software, the computer simply would not talk to any of the cameras. Long periods of inactivity, and statuses of "Not Responding" for both the Zoombrowser and Explorer applications would abound. In the Event Log, multiple instances of "Timed out (30000 milliseconds) waiting for response from stisvc.exe". This is the executable for the aforementioned WIA Service. Notably, the Canon CameraLauncher application starts a process, but it does not appear in the Applications list, or on-screen. (Interestingly, iTunes does this also, but usually appears after 5 minutes).
I've been through with msconfig, switching on services progressively. The system starts up relatively normally, but with much complaining, right up until the point that you enable Plug & Play and WIA. Unfortunately, Microsoft appears somewhat reticent on the issue - the only information on their knowledgebase is pertaining to an all-but-useless wiadebug.log file. Canon's KB is similarly devoid of use.
Has anyone else experienced anything like this? I'd rather not rebuild the computer, but I fear I'm going to have to. Any suggestions that would avoid a rebuild (or a migration to Mac/Linux) would be most gratefully received.
