430exII wired off camera, not firing

I'm sorry, I've been searching the forum forever and I cant quite find the problem I am having right now. I am working on a project for my photo class and I'm having trouble getting the wired flash to fire. When I shoot, the infrared lights up the subjects face but the flash doesn't fire. I have a canon 40D, set in M mode, and I had the flash on Ettl. Is that the problem? I have never used the flash off camera before, but this is the requirement of the assignment. I am just starting to use flash (mostly because of my class) so I am a total noob to the subject.

I appreciate any help I can get from you wonderful people!

Cheers,

April

Are you using an E-TTL cord? Or just a sync cable....

Does the flash fire when it's mounted directly on the hot-shoe?

There's a custom function on the flash to ONLY emit the IR AF-Assist beam (and NOT fire the flash) so if this is enabled, you need to go into the 40D's Flash menu and change this.

It is an E-TTL cord, I will try it straight on the camera and I will check the settings. Thanks for you input!

I got it all figured out, thank you so much for the help!

What was the problem?

egordon99 wrote in post #8872613
What was the problem?

It was a combination (I believe) of the wire being plugged into the hotshoe too loosely, then I was able to change the in camera settings, then presto, magic.