[THE MAC GOD]

Ok, short and sweet jist:

My dad just bought a digital camera (the FinePix S7000, I believe). He took a couple pix with it, and with the wonder of ARD, I was able to watch his computer when we plugged it into the iMac. He has 10.3.3 and all the latest updates. iPhoto pops up and shows that it has a 'USB Mass Storage Device' Connected - the desktop also shows the camera as a mounted drive. So, I click import. While importing, it shows the preview of the pix in that little box. After it's done, it makes an alert noise, then nothing. Nothing shows up in the Library. I've tried several times, with the same effect. Next, I went into the drive and double clicked the photos - all jpegs - and was treated to an error in Preview that stated, basically, that it didn't recognize the file types (THEY'RE JPEGS!). So, my question, besides how do I get it to work, is why would the pictures *show up* in the preview box in iPhoto, and not be 'valid' file types...DOH! Dad's kinda miffed because it says OSX compatability, but so far, it hasn't been. And for some reason, the software CD it came with won't launch. SO, he's boned. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

[reader50]

I have the Fuji F700, which came out about the same time, but I don't use iPhoto for it. I let Image Capture pull the pics in, then store them manually in my own folder structure. Also, I'm using 10.2.8, so my experience may not exactly parallel yours.

If the camera is locking the pics, that might explain the hang if iPhoto is trying to delete the camera copies and failing.

Try copying the pics across from the Finder. You can use Pic2Icon to give them all thumbnails after getting them off the camera. Then try deleting the camera pics from the Finder and see if there is an error.

If the Finder has no problems, take some more pics and try Image Capture. If all goes well again, iPhoto prefs may be the problem.

Once in a great while, I need to reboot for the camera to be recognized and mounted - usually after I've been messing around with other USB peripherals.

[maxintosh]

That's bizzare, my S5000 works perfectly with IPhoto. You may want to post about this problem on Apple's iPhoto tech support boards. Also try using Image Capture to get the photos in.

[THE MAC GOD]

Hmm... Man, it's always something, eh? Anyway, I'll try that! But everything reader50 said, I've tried... so anything else, I'd greatly appreciate!

[reader50]

What were the results when you tried the Finder and Image Capture?

Another thought that comes to mind is a worn/loose USB connection. Either on the camera end, or whatever port you normally plug into.

Also, boot from CD (or another partition) and repair permissions on the normal boot drive. Unless you normally work as the root user, muxed-up permissions can prevent many things from working properly. Example: if the driver can fetch the directory listings but cannot transfer file contents, then all apps used to access the drive will report one or another type of error if they try to open files. If Preview is handed a zero-length file, then yes, it won't be able to figure out what file type it is.

[THE MAC GOD]

Well, here is a new wrinkle in this problem... I can individually open each and every file into Preview... Double clicking them, selecting all and opening, etc... preview sees them all. I can archive them to my desktop via dragging and dropping them from the 'usb mass storage device' with no problems... NOW, even WITH iPhoto 4.0.1, it has gone from not accepting all the images to only accepting about 1/10th of the images. They are all jpeg and ONLY vary in quality. There should be NO reason why Preview could read them all but iPhoto refuses. SO, I have 12 images in my library when there should be 95. Please explain or HELP!