iPhoto won't import photos, doesn't detect camera

Have you tried a card reader on the card (i.e., taking the card out of the camera and putting it in a card reader?) The issue might-- might--be the camera connection.

Also--are you sure everything is plugged in all the way? Are the batteries on the camera good?

And, have you rebooted your computer lately? (sounds kind of odd, I know--)

All things to try.

Doc

I am having the same problem! I have tried rebooting, unplugging, re-plugging...nothing is working. I also checked online at some other forums and nothing seems to be working. HELP!

This has popped up a few times since 10.6. Two possible solutions:

1: Use your camera to reformat the card - but beware, this will erase any pics on it. So you need to get them off first.

2. A couple of folks have reported that left connected (via USB Card Reader) long enough, the card eventually mounts. "Long Enough..." includes overnight.

Regards

TD

I have a similar (same) problem since I upgraded my MacBook Pro to Snow Leopard (10.6). iPhoto won't import my photo's from my HP Photosmart 130 because it is not detected nor shown as usb harddisk.

When I connect my camera to my iBook G4 (10.5.8) I can import my photo's. When I connect my camera to my iMac (10.6.2) I can't import my photo's because my camera is not detected nor shown as usb harddisk.

This seems to me a bug. Please fix this.

Rgrds, Kris

Have you tried any of the fixes above?

This seems to me a bug. Please fix this.

Do you remember the Terms of Use at all? You agreed to them when you signed up and there's a link to them on the right hand side of every page. As they explain, this is a forum for Users to discuss technical issues with other Users. Apple's developers aren’t here. They don’t promise to read anything here.

Regards

TD

Sorry, my mistake. I was in the "flow" and forgot.

I am now trying the suggestion to attach my HP Photosmart 130 overnight and see whether it turns up in iPhoto.

i have a canon sd790is and the same thing is happening to me. i have tried re-downloading software from canon, rebooting system, and now finally leaving it plugged in overnight to see if that makes it work. my card reader on my hp printer doesn't work with the hd 8gb sandisk card i have. this is all happening since i put snowleopard on the imac. if anyone else has discovered the solution to this problem, please let me know what to do.

I have the same problem with my Canon PowerShot. The camera never shows up under devices, though the camera light is blinking as if it's trying to connect.

However, Google Picasa 3 for Mac has no trouble, on the same machine, I'm able to import just fine.

I don't want to reformat my card and lose my photos. This definitely sounds like a bug.

YES! Found a working work-around to import 168 photo's taken in Ecuador with my HP Photosmart M637.

FYI, my observations and found workaround
- Connecting camera -> iPhoto 8.1.1 starts up but doesn't display the connected camera to enable import
- Overnight -> iPhoto still doesn't display the connected camera
- Use Picasa.app (as suggested in this discussion (txs for that) -> configured OSX to start up Picasa, which indeed happened when connecting the camera but camera is not displayed to enable import
- Used ImageCapture vs 6.0 (as suggested in this discussion) -> YES! It shows my camera and enables import into iPhoto vs 8.1.1 which I have done so my urgent problem has been solved ...

I wish you a similar feeling 😉

+1 for users having this problem. For me, it seemed to start just after updating to iPhoto 8.1.1. I also have a Canon camera (Powershot G10).

Waiting hours didn't seem to work. Rebooted without success. However, I did get it to work after only a brief wait when logging in as a different user. I'm going to see if it now works under the user account I actually want to retrieve the photos with and will report back.

After establishing a connection in the other user account, the camera was recognized in the one initially having the trouble. So, in my case at least, you can work around this by logging into another user's account, plugging in the camera, importing (but not necessarily deleting) some pictures, quitting iPhoto, disconnecting the camera, and logging back in as the original user. (More specifically, I used fast user switching.)

I bought my mom a Mac Mini with Snow Leopard and iLife 09 for Christmas and had the same problem with her HP Photosmart R967 camera. I could import pictures through image capture no problem, but it would only open iPhoto without showing the camera. It wouldn't mount to the desktop either. I fixed the problem by doing the following:
1.) Transferred images to the SD card (they were stored on the camera's internal memory)
2.) Changed the USB setting in the camera's menu to "view as Disk Drive" instead of "View as Digital Camera.

It works flawlessly now. iPhoto opens and imports with absolutely no problems at all. I suggest you guys all check your camera's settings and make sure it's being read as a memory card and not a camera. I hope this helps.

Although I worked around the same problem some time ago using ImageCapture, I checked your suggestion and changed the USB setting in my camera HP Photosmart M637 to "View as Disk Drive".

When connecting my camera, it is shown as Hard Disk, iPhoto opens and enables me to import my photo's.

Txs for your suggestion. This really helps.

Hi ! I recently bought the Canon 980IS and am having great difficulty in importing pictures direct to IPhoto. Although the s/w provided works just fine. Somehow, I am just too used to Iphoto and have never bothered to actually look at how the images are stored etc. The beauty of a Mac. However, now it is creating a proble, I just cant seem to find the camera on the finder, desktop or anywhere else. The moment I switch on the canon s/w, it seems to start working, but as I said, I want to use Iphoto. help please.