EOS 90D + EOS Utility 3 — Connection lost during long intervalometer session (~12–15 hrs)

[moisesd]

Hi all,

I'm running long-duration timelapse experiments with a Canon EOS 90D tethered via USB to a Windows 11 laptop (Dell), using EOS Utility 3.20.10.2. The setup: 2000 shots at 60-second intervals (~33 hours total). The camera and laptop are both plugged into AC power.

The problem: the connection drops consistently somewhere between 600 and 950 shots in (~11–15 hours). EOS Utility shows "Connection lost" and marks all remaining shots as failed.

What I've already tried/ruled out:

• Windows sleep and display sleep → both set to Never
• USB Selective Suspend → disabled
• PCI Express Link State Power Management → set to Off
• Mouse jiggler script running in background
• UPS to rule out building power outages
• Windows automatic updates → disabled

The camera stays powered on when the connection drops, so it's not a power issue on the camera side. Shorter sessions (tested with 2000 shots at 6-second intervals, ~3.3 hrs) complete successfully without any issues.

Has anyone experienced this with long tethered sessions? Any settings I might be missing?

Thanks

[Waddizzle]

Welcome to the community!

Where are the files being saved? The files can saved to an internal memory card. 

Why is it important to maintain a connection with the computer? Are you saving image files directly to the computer?

[moisesd]

The files are being saved directly into the computer's local disc.

[SignifDigits]

If you can find the correct USB Root Hub in Device Manager you can try unchecking "allow computer to turn off this device".   Probably need to reboot after that change and then confirm that it stuck.

I have monitors on USB hubs and using a KVM to switch between monitors and they disconnect via the Power Management "USB Selective Suspend".  Don't know if this will work, but perhaps worth a try? 

If not, you might have to consider it a "feature" and save inside the camera.

Screen shot of Device Manager checkbox below.