seriously pissed off camera flash question (wired & infra red mixed)

Does wired sync work with on camera flash? It seems as if my on camera 580ex2 is throwing the sinc wire out of wak.

5d2 hooked up to a strobe thru the sync port on the side of the camera
5d2 hooked up to a strobe thru the synn port on the side of the 580ex2
5d2 " " with the flash off is the only way I could get it to work.

I'm pretty sure the sync port on the 580exII is for input only, you can't use it to trigger another flash/strobe.

thank you austin. It seems as if my strobe has an internal optical sync that just won't turn off even when trigger thru a wire, is the problem.

As you do not refer to the 550EX and 430EX in your tests, I assume they are not in use at the time and are not part of the configuration.

Camera sync port to off-camera 580EXII sync port should fire the flash, unless the flash is in Master and Manual mode, in which case the port is disabled.

I would expect problems if a 580EXII is placed on-camera, and also has a pc-sync cable from camera to flash - I know of no benefit in the redundant connection. Have you tried that configuration?

Turning the main flash Off is possible only when in Master Mode. It requires a full E-TTL connection to be in use (hot-shoe, Canon extension cable). If it is off, in what way did "it work"?

As Austin.Manny says, the 580EXII sync port is input only, and only when in the right modes. A cable running from a 580EXII port to say, a 550EX will not fire the 550EX.

There is no optical sync capability in the 580EXII. The Canon command/E-TTL system uses an optical carrier, but is not a simple optical trigger. A PC-sync cable can be used in a "hybrid trigger" configuration under very specific settings.

Perhaps a more useful response could be given if you said precisely what configuration you are trying to achieve.