NEX-5N Missing pictures and duplicated pictures when

[kxbcjb]

When I connect the SONY NEX-5N to upload files with the SD card sitting in the camera I

occasionally get duplicated pictures with different filnames.

When the picture i "played" in the camera I get no duplicates and I can see picture that are

never uploaded.

If I put the SD card in the reader in the computer I get the same result as when I "play" the

pictures i.e. the correct result

This must be a bug in the cameras firmware

My version says:

Body: NEX-5N

Ver. 1.0

Is there a newerfirmware?

How do you upgrade the firmware in the camera?

[Mick2011]

Hi kxbcjb, welcome to the Sony Forums

As there hasn't been an update yet, your NEX-5N firmware will be up to date; updates are downloaded to (and installed via) a PC, as/when they appear on the relevant Sony page: http://www.sony.co.uk/support/en/product/NEX-5N/updates

By and large you'll only see an update if a serious fault or important omission becomes apparent; however I don't think this is a firmware issue. It's a quirk in PMB that (as you note) you can overcome by using a card reader, and it seems to happen with a number of different cameras. PMB does get updated quite regularly (check the link above for the current version) and I guess it may well be addressed at some point.

Of course you may not be using PMB in any event, as this is an image browser issue you could always try a different one for uploading images to your PC, assuming you'd rather not use a card reader.

Cheers

Mick

[kxbcjb]

Thanks for the quick answer. No I am no used PMB for this purpose I just accessing the files as the camera presents it to the file system. It does not matter if I am using the microsoft picture browser that comes with window 7  or the windows explorer.

You are right a workaround is to use the card reader and it seems to be the same effort to take the card aut of the camera as to find the usb-cable, so why not 🙂

This I think this is a bug in the camera and I wondered if Sony had any plans to correct it!

Chers

Kalix

[Mick2011]

A firmware bug would be affecting everyone using a NEX-5N with W7 and simply haven't heard of many others with this problem. The fact is this issue crops up randomly, with multiple cameras, across brands and computer platforms, suggesting it has more to do with the way users arrange their image files and organise their folders than default camera behaviour.

Personally, I use Adobe Lightroom and keep everything organised by date. The camera records EXIF data (including date info) which is read by Lightroom and sorted automatically into date-based folders. You can get software specifically to do this for you, which may or may not be worth your while depending on how much you tend to shoot.

It may be you have a setting somewhere that's causing this behaviour and it might be possible to track it down. I've just noticed you mentioned having different filenames, which is odd... are they completely different or just slightly amended?

No idea about plans, incidentally, it's anyone's guess what Sony are planning

Cheers

Mick

[kxbcjb]

Actually what I see when connecting the camera with the usb cable (SD-card sitting i camera) is two files with the sam image content. I I take out the SD-card an put i in the PC's card reader i can see the two files with different contents. This seems to happen randomly, but once it has happened it the problem remains. i.e. once I have seen two files with the same content using the usb cable the behaviiour is consistent. It is nothing wrong with the filenames it is just the content of the file that comes out wrong (i.e. it is another file's content)

When I have the SD card in the camera using USB-cable the files are organized in folders one folder per day. When I used the SD-card i the PC's card reader the files are all on one folder, so the bug in the firmware must be in the algorithem where the camera reorganizes the files into day folder.

The above happens when I use Windows Explorer to copy the files.When I use Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 Organizer to import the files I get the correct content of the file, so obviosly Windows Explorer and Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 Organizer conmunicates differently with the camera.

Another observation is that the problem  only occurs when the picture date is within the same minute.

Cheers

Kalix

[Mick2011]

kxbcjb wrote:
When I use Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 Organizer to import the files I get the correct content of the file, so obviosly Windows Explorer and Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 Organizer conmunicates differently with the camera.
Another observation is that the problem  only occurs when the picture date is within the same minute.

This is interesting. PSElements is the sort of tool I was suggesting you use, as it will be tailored to organising image files. Those duplicate images (having the correct filename but the wrong image) should never happen in any dedicated image browser. I'm now even more sure the problem lies with Windows Explorer; MS picture browser will probably use the same file structure etc. which would explain the similar behaviour.

Until I read your last sentence, I didn't consider one of the subtleties that non-dedicated image browsers like Explorer might not pick up on. Is it possible that it only happens with images having the same date/time to the same second? With cameras shooing multiple frames-per-second this is quite possible and could easily fool a file sorting algorithm that only works down to day-hour-min-sec level and examines datestamp info before filename for certain tasks.

Unrelated to this, have you checked to see if it's just the thumbnail that is duplicated? In other words, if the filename is correct, does it open with the correct image, or is that duplicated too?

[kxbcjb]

I found that the camera have a setting where you select Auto, Mass Storage or MTP for the USB connection. My setting was the default setting Auto that chooses MTP when I connect to my camera. I didn't know what MTP was so I looked it up on Wikipedia and found out that it is the Media Transfer Protocol. According to Wikipedi the file system for MTP is handle by the camera, ( "The actual file system is implemented by the device, not by the computer's operating system." ) so I still think there is a bug in the NEX-firmwares implementation of this file system as it is delivering the wrong file contents for som files, which causes the PC to store duplicated pictures and miss on picture for each duplicated.

I changed the camera setting from Auto to Mass Storage in which case the SD card sitting in the camera looks exactly as when I put the card in PC's reader. In this case I get the correct contents of the files. i.e. I get all picture and no duplication.

The reason why PSE Organizer manage to import the files must be that is uses Mass Storage althought the camera display does not show this.

So my conclusion is that there is either a bug in the camera or there is a bug in Windows 7 on how it handles MTP. I have not checked Microsoft yet for any known bugs in the MTP handling.

Cheers

Kalix

[Mick2011]

Yes, MTP is a protocol ported from Sony Ericcson phones, IIRC, but it's more for media in general. There's one for images – PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol) – which I've used before but it's really no better than Mass Storage and ultimately more bother than it's worth...

I couldn't say for sure as I've not researched it in any depth, but this isn't likely to be a bug anywhere, just a simple (if annoying) compatibility issue. If you're able to use MTP, that's one compatibility issue less

Personally I'd go with convenience and if it's no more incovenient for you to use a card reader, well, that's what the majority seem to go with these days. I'm pretty sure we're not the first to reach that conclusion!

Best wishes

Mick

[kxbcjb]

Then the conclusion is that I stay away from the MTP protocol and change the camera setting from Auto to Mass Storage for the USB connection. Then I will have the same behaviour regardles of if I use the USB calble to connect the camera or if I pu the card in the reader.

Thanks lot for the locng discussion!

Kalix

[Mick2011]

My pleasure, Kalix