Strobe fires multiple times when I press the playback button on camera

So this is the first time in about two years that I have my gear in the water and I am running into a problem that I haven't had in the past.

I am using a Canon SL1 in a Sea and Sea housing, with two YS-d1 strobes. I also have the Sea and Sea YS optical converter and fiber optic sync cables. Ive used this setup for about two years with great results but the system sat for almost two years during covid and either something went wrong with the setup or something went wrong with my brain.  

Now when I set everything up sometimes my strobes  start rapidly firing with no input from me or when I push the play (review) button on my camera rapid fire of the strobes. Is this a weird setting I messed up? Or just a piece of glitching electronics? 

Any advice or input would be greatly appreciated. 

Possible misalignment of the camera in the housing - with pressure being applied to a button? Or maybe a jammed housing button?

The problem probably may be in the camera, or less so in the S&S optical converter. 

Remove the camera and go thru the Menu check all items, particularly the Flash menu, and check each item carefully, particularly the External Flash Function.  Now set the camera to Auto, one exposure, and try it, then Manual, one exposure,  and try it.  

Examine the flash hot shoe, make sure all the contacts are very clean with nothing stuck between them.  Same for the optical converter hot shoe plug, check that the contacts are clean and shiny. 

While you are at it, it won't hurt to check all the batteries, fully charged with no leaks or corrosion.  

If the multi flash persists, remove the camera from the housing, attach an external flash and take some shots to see if it flashes once per shot.  If not, take the camera to a shop. 

If the camera flashes once per shot as it should, but when connected to the S&S converter, the converter flashes multi times, the problem is in the converter.  A Sea&Sea agent should know what to do.

Let us know what happens.  Good luck!

Could be a number of issues.  In low light  the camera strobes the flash to use as an AF assist - perhaps find that in the menus and disable the AF assist beam?  C-Fn-4 I believe.  Some cameras also have  function to strobe the flash to use it as a modelling light, but I'm not sure if the SL-1 does this. 

Otherwise check for stuck buttons, try exercising all of the buttons.  I would also suggest testing it with the camera out of the housing as well, this will eliminate stuck buttons a cause potentially.  You could see if the hot shoe cable reaches the camera if it is placed just outside the housing.  If it still has the problem then it's probably not an issue with housing buttons.

Thanks for all the advice.

I traded out all batteries for fresh (including in the Optical converter).

Cleaned the hot shoe contacts and the Optical converter contacts.

Double checked all buttons, operated the camera with the back off to ensure no buttons were getting pushed.

Checked through all the menus. 

It turns out that the strobe was going crazy on its own. When I turned the strobe on not connected to anything it started going off and flashing like crazy. So I guess I will shoot macro with one strobe for the rest of my trip.

Err, yeah, that sounds like it's the strobe. Argh!  Hope the rest of the trip goes well.

4 hours ago, Absolutbill said:

Thanks for all the advice.

I traded out all batteries for fresh (including in the Optical converter).

Cleaned the hot shoe contacts and the Optical converter contacts.

Double checked all buttons, operated the camera with the back off to ensure no buttons were getting pushed.

Checked through all the menus. 

It turns out that the strobe was going crazy on its own. When I turned the strobe on not connected to anything it started going off and flashing like crazy. So I guess I will shoot macro with one strobe for the rest of my trip.

 

As a last resort check all the available modes on the strobe to see if  it strobes constantly on them.  SO if you are shooting manual see if it also flashes away on TTL and vice versa.  If you are shooting manual you could have the bad strobe on TTL if it behaves itself there and have it slave off the good strobe for example.

Back in 2017 Pavel Kolpakov had some suggestions on trouble shooting the YS-D1 strobe (1)

This flashing strobe sounds like the trigger photo-transistor or the high voltage transistor circuit that closes the xenon flash circuit is defective.  Replacement should be relatively easy, except that the insides of the strobe are tightly packed with circuit boards and delicate wires, which makes the repair tricky and uncertain, and justifiably expensive. As the YS-D1 dates from early 2012, it might be better to buy a new strobe or two, as quite a lot has been learned since then about how to design and build strobes.

1. https://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?/topic/59936-troubleshooting-ys-d1-sea-and-sea-strobe/