ViewNX 2 Nikon software doesn't work with OS X El Capitan

Regarding the posts about Nikon Capture NX2, Nikon View NX2, Nikon Capture NX-D and Nikon View NX-i. These will not install if you upgrade to El Capitan. If they are already installed previously on Yosemite, using the latest versions from Nikon, they will work if you upgrade to El Capitan. The installation programs are the problem and no amount of editing of the installer will make them work.

Nikon has already stated they do not plan to upgrade Nikon Capture NX2 or View NX2. Regarding the Nikon Capture NX-D and View NX-i, they will provide support eventually. The temporary work around for Capture NX-D and View NX-i s to run Yosemite from a USB drive and install both programs. Then reboot to El Capitan and connect the USB drive again and copy all the Nikon application and Library files and from the Yosemite installation to El Capitan.

Pacifist worked for me to install Nikon Transfer from the ViewNX-I package on El Capitan, but ViewNX-I install failed with lots of checksum errors. That was OK with me, since I really only needed Nikon Transfer. I tested it, and it seems to run fine after the install with Pacifist.

if you get past the nagging checksum errors, it still works. I have ViewNX working on my machine.

As I stated in my previous post, the only way to make Nikon Capture NX 2 and View NX 2 work on El Capitan, is to have installed it on Yosemite and then upgrade to El Capitan and this works fine. The problem is the installer and even editing it will not make it work. I believe it is a retrograde step by Nikon not upgrade Nikon Capture NX2 because it is still an excellent program for editing images quickly and the use of control points + of course Nik Color Efex Pro integrated into the software.

The work around for Nikon Capture NX-d and View NX-i is fine until Nikon sort it out. However, they do not have the flexibility and processing power of the NX2 versions. They are also very buggy and crash frequently on both MAC and PC, even with high performance machines with i7 processors and 16GB RAM.

This works...

My Mavericks to El Capitan upgrade destroyed my hard drive and I only had very old backups, so I just re-installed El Capitan on a freshly formatted drive. I have managed to get ViewNX 2 working. It wasn't easy, and I can barely remember the steps, but it went something like this:

1) Purchase / install Pacifist

2) Use Pacifist to open the DMG archive. In my case it was S-VNX2__-021002MF-NSAEN-ALL___.dmg (148.8MB)

3) Extract Installers/Packages/EN/Contents of ViewNX 2.mpkg to the desktop as "Xtract"

4) Run "one" of the installers within the package. I can't remember which one I ran - sorry!. It fails complaining about not being able to write to "tmp". You will see that the following directories in Library/Application Support/Nikon have been created but are empty:

* Musics

* Profiles

* Uninstaller

4.5) Copy "Xtract/Applications/Nikon Software/ViewNX 2/ViewNX 2.app" to your Applications folder

5) Copy the contents of "Xtract/View NX2 Folder/View NX2 Folder/tmp/jp.co.nikon.installer.apppkg/*" to "Library/Application Support/Nikon/*"

6) You can now run ViewNX by running Applications/ViewNX 2.app but all the strings will be internal language placeholder strings

7) Copy "Contents of ViewNX 2_EN.pkg/Applications/Nikon Software/ViewNX 2/ViewNX 2.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj" and "RegionConfig.xml" to "Library/Application Support/Nikon/Resources". This will get the strings corrected.

Apologies for the rambling, but I honestly don't remember quite what I did, but I just wanted to say that it CAN be done, on a fresh El Capitan installation, without a prior Mavericks installation. And probably in half as many steps as above. All I remember is trying a few things to install, it failed, I manually copied over the Library/Application Support/Nikon files from two places, and it's working for me. I hope my post gives someone some hope!

As I stated previously, I upgraded to El Capitan and Nikon Capture NX2 and View NX2 still work. There is a service pack El Capitan !0.11.1, just released, which I have upgraded to and all still work. Also, Nikon Capture NX2 loads much faster, which suggests it could now be compatible. It may be worth trying to load it from scratch, as Apple have stated it gives better compatibility. Furthermore, it may be worth trying to load Nikon Capture NX-d and View NX-i.

I had the latest version of the nikon software (as far as i know,only installed on April this year) it was working on Yosemite but with El Capitan it no worky?

I've now got the 10.1 upgrade to El Capitan and the installer still jambs when trying to reinstall, and the above mentioned archive coping of .DMG files is way above my level of comfort and expertise.

Might need to wait until Nikon does update?!

Nikon ViewNX-i cannot be "re-installed" with system OS-X 11. I trashed it on my laptop because it was continually crashing, and when I attempted to re-install it, the installer froze and it was necessary to force quit the operation. Several attempts and downloads later, I've given up on Nikon's browsing software - it's junk. It was valuable in a college classroom setting for my digital photography classes, being able to show focus point(s) and more complete EXIF data, but that was when it worked......

I just gave up. I have a new iMac. So I just downloaded my pics to a folder using the "Photo.app". Once in the folder I can view my pics with ViewNX2. It's a little hum bug, but it works. I just use Nikon to view the photos. My main software is Adobe. I could never load the software onto elCapitan.

This helped me because my other mac is still running Yosemite, and NX-D was running splendidly on there, and I just copied in the said folders and voila!! Amazing find! Thanks Terry98. Are there any 'side effects' to doing this as opposed to going the typical installer route? Any unpleasant surprises down the road I should be aware of? Meanwhile it works great and I'm back up and running. Thanks again. I hope this helps others too..

This workaround is for those using Photoshop. I don't know if it will work with other photo editing software or not.

I am using Photoshop CS6, but I assume this would work with other PS versions (?) I had been running OSX Yosemite on my Mac Pro desktop (mid 2010) and used Nikon ViewNX 2 to download photos from my camera with no problems at all. I just upgraded to OSX 10.11.1 El Capitan a few days ago and, like others, discovered that ViewNX 2 was not compatible with it and would not recognize or download any photos from my cameras (Nikon D-7100 and D-810). It has been said here that if one has NX 2 already in use with Yosemite, it will work if you merely upgrade to El Capitan. Not true in my case--it still did not work at all. However, you can bypass this problem using Photoshop:

1. Connect the camera to the computer as usual.

2. Turn the camera on, of course.

3. Open Photoshop.

4. Go to the PS drop down "File" menu (in the upper left corner).

5. Select "Import".

6. A window will open showing a selection of sources. Select "Images From Device".

7. Another window opens which (hopefully!) shows your camera and the photo thumbnails.

8. Select a download destination, then hilight the photos you want to download and click "Download". If you want to download them all, click "Download All".

This works well for me.

Looks like Nikon has fixed the installer for ViewNX-i. There is a new version dated Nov 26, 2015 on their support webpage. I am running El Capitan, OS X 10.11.1, and it installed on my system with no problems.

http://downloadcenter.nikonimglib.com/en/products/220/ViewNX-i.html

Aloha and Thanks Jetrider.

I went to the site and downloaded the update. It works just fine, so far 🙂 The most confusing part was try to figure out to how select the operating system.

I had a somewhat hard time trying to figure out how to choose o/s. By trial and error I select both systems and let the wrong selection reject.

Thank you for the workaround terry98

Copied the Nikon folder from old imac running OS X Mavericks 10.9.5 'Applications' folder and then placed it into the 'Applications' folder on El Capitan and also copied the Nikon folder located in 'Library/Application Support' on old imac and place it into the 'Library/Application Support' folder on El Capitan.

Nikon software is working fine on new imac with OS X El Capitain.

One glitch - I can not open Nikon Capture NX2 as it is asking for me to re-enter product key - but not recognizing product key legally purchased directly from Nikon.

Thoughts welcome.