Camera detected but not visible, unmount needed

[FinixFighter]

Hello,
I started using Eagle Animation on my pc with LMDE 7 and I noticed that the only camera shown was my integrated camera, even though my Canon EOS 700D was connected.
After some tests I found out that after connecting my camera to the pc I need to unmount it in order to make it appear in the list of available cameras in Eagle Animation.
I don't think this is a user-friendly behaviour, this can potentially happen with lots on camera and some users may be discuraged from using Eagle Animation.

I suggest to add at least some kind of popup saying that the camera needs to be unmounted before being able to use it. Entangled software already has this behaviour and that's what suggested me the way to make it work on Eagle too.
If not automatically, the popup could at least show up when the user clicks the button "Refresh camera list"; if a camera is found but it's not usable then the pop-up appears.

[Maxou44]

It's a limitation on Linux. Sometimes another application takes control of the PTP connection, and the Canon SDK is no longer able to detect the camera. I know it's possible to detect this using libgphoto2, but we use the official Canon SDK because it's more stable and compatible.

I'm not sure how we could fix this on the technical side at the moment, if you have any ideas, I'd be happy to look into them.

Just to confirm: if you click the refresh button, the camera doesn't appear in the list until you unmount it?

[FinixFighter]

Just to confirm: if you click the refresh button, the camera doesn't appear in the list until you unmount it?

Yes, exactly.

[FinixFighter]

I'm not sure how we could fix this on the technical side at the moment, if you have any ideas, I'd be happy to look into them.

I don't think the Canon SDK itself needs to change. Since you mentioned that libgphoto2 is able to detect the camera even when the SDK cannot access it, perhaps it could be used only as a diagnostic tool.

For example, when the user clicks Refresh camera list:

1. Try to detect the camera using the Canon SDK (as it already does).
2. If no camera is found, perform a quick check with libgphoto2.
3. If libgphoto2 detects a Canon camera but the SDK does not, show a dialog such as:

Camera detected, but it is currently in use by the operating system.
Please unmount/eject the camera from your file manager and click Refresh again.

This way libgphoto2 would only be used to improve the user experience and provide a meaningful explanation, while the Canon SDK would remain responsible for the actual camera control.

It's just a throwaway idea, I don't know if it's feasible.