Scanning process freezes

[Robert G]

My technical level is low, having not grown up with computers. I have an iMac G5 PowerMac8,2 with OS X Version 10.4.7. A USB cable connects my Epson Stylus CX6400 (printer/scanner/copier) to the computer. Until recently, scanning worked fautlessly. Printing still works fine. I scan documents on the flatbed using Image Capture; mostly the documents are A4 size and I set the resolution to 300dpi thus the size of the files created are in MB rather than KB.

Now, when attempting to scan a document, Image Capture still obtains and displays a preview successfully, but, after selecting the desired area and adjusting the scan settings, and then clicking on Image Capture's scan button, the scanning process starts and then stops very soon afterwards. Both Image Capture and the scanner seem to 'freeze'. Image Capture's scan progress bar disppears, and the scanner's LCD display continues to display 'Scanning...'. I've tried leaving all alone for many minutes but nothing further happens.

The scanner returns to 'ready' status only if I disconnect it from the power supply, reconnect it and switch it on. Image Capture will only unfreeze and recommence 'preview' (which it is set to do automatically upon opening, because I only use it for scanning) after I have quit the application and then re-opened it. I have also tried restarting my computer but this hasn't made any difference.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

[Pat Flanel]

Have you tried using the epson software which came with the printer? I would try that. Also did it only go wrong when you upgraded to 10.4.7? Also check out the Apple discussion boards here http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumI D=756

Hope this helps

[Robert G]

Thanks, Pat Flanel. The software which came with the Epson machine is for Windows PCs (!), not the Mac. (But I just hooked up the Epson via USB and it just worked.

No, it was working fine after I upgraded to 10.4.7.

I'll check the Apple discussion boards, though.

Thanks for your help.

[fo3nix]

Are you sure the software doesn't work for Mac OS X?

I've just looked and there seems to be a driver and software available for it. I'd recommend downloading it, because it may well be newer than the software that was supplied when you bought the printer.

[Robert G]

Aha. Many thanks for that. I am very grateful to you. What a brilliant facility The Answer Bank is!!