Transferring directly to Eye-Fi center

[VincentNguyen]

Good morning,

I have been experiencing a little with Eye-Fi over the last few weeks, and there is one thing that puzzles me: it would appear that even when connected to the same physical network, the Eye-Fi card transfers first the pics to the cloud (probably an Eye-Fi hosted server somewhere), then they are downloaded back to the defined computer. I assume this behaviour as when monitoring activity both on the card (I have a Canon T2i, which displays the Eye-fi connection status) and the Eye-Fi center, there is a long delay between the card has finished transmitting, and the time the Eye-Fi center register new photos and start to download them. That and the speed which is really really slow.

This has some advantages and some disadvantages:
- Advantage is that when not at home, the images are transferred over the the Desktop PC automatically
- Disadvantage: speed... using my internal network, I would not expect it would take more than a few seconds to transfer one picture to the Eye-Fi center. As it turns out, it takes way more than that, since upstream bandwidth is the limiting factor. This is kind of impractical when dealing with a situation of 50 or more pics stored on the card, as it just takes almost forever

Am I missing something ?

Help and comments welcome

Vincent

[MikeV]

Check firewall settings on your home computer. If the Eye-Fi card is not able to make a connection to your computer, but has an internet connection, it will send pictures to Eye-Fi's servers, and then your computer will download them from there.

If you're running Windows Vista or 7, make sure that your connection is either "Home" or "Work", and not "Public"... if it's the latter, then the card won't be able to connect directly to the computer no matter what.

[VincentNguyen]

Is there a specific port I need to open ? The Eye-Fi application sits on my Windows Home Server, so I'm reluctant to play around to much with generic security settings, and I would prefer to open just the needed ports.

Thanks

[sean]

Hi there Vincent,

The Eye-Fi card will only transfer to the Eye-Fi servers if:

1. You have an online destination configured (like Eye-Fi View, Picasa, Flickr, Facebook).
2. You have Relayed Uploads enabled.
3. You have Hotspots enabled.

If you are only interested in sending photos to your Windows Home Server, disable all the options I mentioned above and the Eye-Fi card should send the photos directly to your computer.

Hope this helps.

Sean

[berend]

Is there a specific port I need to open ? The Eye-Fi application sits on my Windows Home Server, so I'm reluctant to play around to much with generic security settings, and I would prefer to open just the needed ports.

Make sure TCP port 59278 allows incoming connections. If the card can contact the computer running the Eye-Fi software on the local subnet, it will always prefer to transfer the files directly there (even if you have options like "relayed uploads" enabled).

Berend

[VincentNguyen]

Splendid, this worked. I now get 10s transfer for each picture, which is acceptable (compared to the 60s and more when going through Eye-Fi servers).

Thanks for the tip.

One point which is puzzling however, as an advice to Eye-Fi Center developer: it does not seem that Eye-Fi center updates the firewall rules, at least on WHS2011. Just opening the port solved the issue, I would recommend to at least document it, or update the installer to open the port automatically.

Regards

Vincent Nguyen

[sean]

Hi Vincent,

We don't really test all that much with Windows Home Server (per http://support.eye.fi/support-resources ... -software/, we don't 'officially' support WHS), so that's probably why you ran into some issues with it. Good to hear that you are up and running though.

Sean

[jcork]

Has anyone had this issue on a mac? My firewall is turned off. Here's my hardware/software situation:

- Canon T1i (shooting in raw)
- Apple iMac running OSX Lion
- Apple AirPort Router (wireless a/n - b/g/n, WPA2 Personal Security)
- Eye.Fi X2 Pro 8GB Card
- Eye.Fi Center Version 3.4.24

I've uploaded photos of my Eye.Fi Center configuration here: http: // bit . ly / AmflAU [without the spaces]

It's taking FOREVER to transfer a single photo. I've set my camera to not go to sleep until after 15 minutes and it's taking at least 5 - 10 minutes to transfer each photo?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks.
Josh

[jsun]

hi Josh,

Based on those screenshots, it looks like Relayed Transfers is enabled, but not because of Hotspots, Eye-Fi View or online sharing for Photos/RAW. If you have online sharing turned on for Videos, turn that off, then see if you can turn off Relayed Transfers. Add your wi-fi network to the card again and see if this helps. You could also enable photo and video uploads to the Mac in case some deliveries are stuck.

If those don't help, we should check your Eye-Fi card log and Eye-Fi Helper log, so we can determine where the delays are occurring.

Please shoot a couple new photos, wait a few minutes for some upload activity, then locate the logs and attach them to an email to support@eye.fi.

To retrieve the card log: connect the card to your Mac, click the Eye-Fi Helper icon in your Apple menu bar, and choose "Get Eye-Fi Card log". Save the log somewhere convenient, then attach it to your new email.

The Eye-Fi Helper log is found in /Users/<your username>/Library/Eye-Fi as "EyeFi.log" (the ".log" may be hidden depending on your system). Please quit Eye-Fi Center and Helper, then attach this log file to the same email. To view your Library folder, click the Finder's Go menu while holding your Option/Alt key, as described here:
http://www.tuaw.com/2011/08/25/mac-101- ... r-in-lion/

Send us those logs and we'll take a look.

Thanks!

[jcork]

jsun - Thanks! I tried your suggestions and it's still slow. Just sent off my log files. Thanks again!