Trouble Connecting EOS R8 to EOS Utility on a Mac

[tjdowling]

I am having issues connecting my R8 to my Mac via the EOS Utility. I have the latest software and have gone through the user manual. The message I keep getting is:

"Communication with the camera via USB cannot be established.
Start EOS Utility after closing all the apps that communicate with the camera, and then turn on the camera again."

I am unaware of any apps that I have that would be trying to communicate with my camera in the background. Anyone know what's going on? Thanks in advance.

[suspectpenguin]

A version of this worked for me (MB Pro M1, Sonoma 14.1.1, Canon R6) -- but I had to set accessory settings to "always".

I then restarted, was still prompted the error message but was able to download the images. This suggests indeed the new USB/accessory setting is at the root of the issue. Thanks all for the trouble shooting!

Update: didn't work with Canon 5D Mark II though - same error loop.

[husrona]

Hi everyone, first of all my apologies for taking it a bit too long to respond. I promised to record a video for you to show you how to get it to work. Initially I said that you need to disable all the applications that are requesting camera. Today that did not work for me. Probably due to the upgrade to Sonoma or probably the reason is what I am about to describe.

What I figured out was that you need to quit every single applications that might request camera access. In the video that I created you will see in the foreground that Lightroom is active. The moment I quit Lightroom there were no more applications of such kind that would request access to camera. You can also see that the camera started working. 

[Artfool]

I'm having the same problems now on my M1 MacBook Pro Max (topped off) running Ventura 13.6.2. after updating the firmware to 1.2.0 on the camera. Everything was connecting and working fine before I did the firmware update, and now I get the eternal "Communication...cannot be established" over and over no matter what apps I close, what cable I use or whether it is directly plugged in or using a hub (which it was able to connect through before). I am at my wits end and Canon really needs to step up here and address this issue! I just decided to upgrade my camera body after a decade and this is what we get?

P.S. Just updated firmware to 1.3.0 and no difference. So I just tried one of the user suggestions to use Image Capture instead and lo and behold there is the camera and the images. Why on earth can't the Canon app connect when this barebones Apple provided one can? Just wow, Canon. I thought maybe you had improved over the last decade but this is the same story we had back then too, particularly with printer drivers.

P.P.S. So I rebooted into Safe Mode and the camera was able to connect. Hmmmm. I'm at a loss why it was able to connect before the firmware update. How can we find out what might be interfering?

[NatalyaP]

Greetings Artfool,

We apologize for you experiencing connection issues between your Canon camera and the EOS Utility software application. We've submitted your feedback regarding this issue. You may occasionally check the product support page for your camera and updates will be posted once they become available.

[ltahb]

In my case closing Dropbox fixed the issue, which I didn't expect so I went through all the other suggestions first. So turns out the error message was actually pretty accurate.  😁

[suspectpenguin]

Nice work - that did the trick!

[petero]

Essentially EOS Utility doesn't work any more. Not sure if it is the fault off Apple or Canon, but after months of trying everything, I have frankly given up.

You can still download into the Apple Photos application - ironically there seems to be no problem "seeing" the camera connected to that when it is plugged in. Alternatively use a card reader and accept that until Canon releases an updated  version of the Canon Utility you can't use it.

[jrhoffman75]

Unless you are planning on editing in Apple Photos I wouldn't recommend downloading images into Apple Photos. Images download to Apple Photos are not available to other editing programs.

Apple Image Capture will allow you to download to a file location of your choosing.

[rohit_]

I'm facing the same issue. It had to restart the iMac to get the whole thing working again. Another hack which a friend discovered by pure luck, tried logging out and then logging in. It works almost every time. Sometimes only pulling the USB cable out and replugging helps maintain the connection again. This is really frustrating, especially when you are going through batteries every few hours or have to change the lens, one has to go through the whole cycle again.

Did you find any solution? Might have to switch to Capture One if things don't get better soon 😞

[jrhoffman75]

If connecting to the Mac is the problem I wouldn’t think Capture 1 would help. If the problem is EOSU you could try Apple Image Capture.