[John Murphy]

Funny you should mention this problem. I was working on a project on the road. All the project files and media were on an external hard drive. When I connected the Duel Adapter to my MacBook Pro (4 gig ram), the P2 icon immediately appeared on the desktop. I opened FCP and tried to import the P2 contents through Log and Transfer. It took 10 minutes for Log and Transfer to recognize the card. Not good. However, P2CM could recognize the P2 card without a problem. So the trouble shooting began.

First, restarted the MacBook and used the Panasonic PD170 camera as the card reader and once again the card appeared immediately on the desktop. Once again P2CM could read the card without a problem but it still took FCP at least 10 minutes to recognize the card.

Next, I switched to my other MacBook Pro (earlier model, no firewire 800 and only 2 gigs of ram) and ran through every combination and permutation of card readers, order of software loading, external hard drive connections (firewire, USB, eSATA Raid 1). I dried other external drives. I tried using the internal drive. I even reloaded Panasonic’s P2 card driver software v.2 and ran all the options for a thrid time.

Then, I used Disk Utility, TechTool Pro and Disk Warrior to repair permissions and verify all internal and external drives. No change. It was still taking 10 minutes for FCP to see the card.

Now the story gets crazy. I got back to the office and set up both systems to scrutinize the problem once again. But now FCP worked perfectly – FCP recognized the P2 card immediately. I tried to replicate the problem by trying every combination and permutation of hardware and software on the same two MacBook Pro editing systems. I could not duplicate it the errant behavior.

After reading this entiere thread, certainly there is something rotten in Denmark – what it is seems to be a mystery. Jeremy suggests using the combo software update to move from Leopard 10.5.5 to 10.5.6. It can only help but how do you troubleshoot a problem that is no longer showing itself? We may never know. Uncertainty is a principle. Sigh.