Inon Z330 and Canon T4i compatibility issue?

I'm using a canon T4i with an Ikelite housing and I recently upgraded from the Ikelite DS-51 to the Inon Z330. My new Inon works but will only fire I'm using the view finder and won't fire if I have the live view mode active. My Ikelite strobe still works using either liveview or view finder. I'm wondering if there's a compatibility issue with the Canon T4i and Inon Z330 due to the newness of the Inon and oldness of the Canon and if there are any fixes to this issue.

What are the details for your triggering.  I am assuming you are using wired triggering and that it's manual only.  Do you have any sort of TTL board as well?   Typically it is necessary to check the full setup you are using from hotshoe all the way through to the strobe.

I would think the issue is likely to lie in the camera as in general unless you have some sort of TTL board in the mix the camera does not know there is a strobe attached and simply closes a circuit, though I believe the strobe is supposed to work with old Nikonos style TTL-Auto (not e-TTL as used with modern digital cameras).

Doing some googling turned up this post, apparently Canon DSLR's won't trigger the flash in silent mode and live view with non Canon strobes:  https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/2949614 

I know the system worked previously with the DS-51 - perhaps it locked out the Canon system somehow.  Are you using the same hot shoe connector with the new strobes?  If it is changed - how many contacts are on the connector, comapred to the old? 

I am guessing the camera will probably still trigger a manual strobe in live view but may block it if there are other connections made through other pins.

The only thing I've changed is the strobe and a got a sync cord that connects to my housing. I'm using the # 6871.65 ikelite housing. It's able to do TTL with the ikelite strobe but I plan on shooting manual anyway. It looks like the T4i doesn't have a silent mode. I just looked up http://www.inon.jp/products/strobe/z330/compatibility.html maybe this answers my question because I don't see my camera under that list but I still find it weird that it would fire in the view finder just not in live view.

Could be that code is still in there, just not documented - to do TTL in live view it needs to drop the mirror pre flash and raise it again, so maybe if it detects a strobe there it deactivates it.  As an experiment you could tape over the smaller connectors on your camera hot shoe, leaving only the centre one exposed - that way it can only trigger - many cameras will complete the circuit in sync which will trigger a manual strobe regardless when the shutter is released to enable them to work with manual only strobes.    If your hotshoe has 5 pins it may be enough to tell the camera a strobe is there but because it can't work out how to deal with it it decides to de-activate flash. 

I don't think Live View should affect flash protocol. It might be more which Live View focussing choice you've selected. Been a few years since I played with a T4i which is a good camera

Try holding down both flash tray buttons on the housing back to switch your TTL circuit board to MANUAL flash and see if it allows you to trip the Inon Z330.

Also be sure to set the Inon Z330 strobes on full manual control and not S-TTL.

The Ikelite circuitry was designed to work TTL or MANUAL adjustment with Ikelite strobes and will not mate with other brand strobe's S-TTL or even hard wired TTL.

Just a thought

dhaas