Q: Scanner only works on some computers
I recently purchased a Canon LiDE 220 scanner that is supported by El Capitan according to apple's supported scanners page, however whenever I try to scan on my computer it says "Scanner Reported an Error. Can not communicate with scanner". I installed the Canon software before trying to scan, and I wonder if that caused an issue because it works on two MacBook Pros (Non-retina display) without the Canon software. I restored my computer from a time machine back up that I made before I installed the software, and I still had no luck. Any ideas?
So in summary:
Does not work on MacBook Pro (Retina Display) OS X El Capitain with or without Canon drivers and software.
Does work on MacBook Pro OS X El Captian without Canon software.
I tried using preview, the Printers and Scanners page of system preferences, Image Capture, and Canon's proprietary scanner applications all to no avail.
Has anyone else run into this or know why it works on some computers but not mine? I would love a fix or work around.
Thanks in advance
MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013), OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)
Posted on Jan 31, 2016 11:35 AM
I found a fix! It isn't quite as direct as I would have hoped, but it is still a pretty easy work around that I hope can help anyone else who runs across this problem! I suspect a file or driver in my computer is causing the issue, so as a kind of desperate attempt I tried using my computer's guest account. The scanner works perfectly! Apparently something can go wrong that can not be solved by reinstalling the software, deleting printer drivers, or backing up from a time machine back up, but using a new user account on the same computer bypasses the villainous files. Just for perfect clarity, from my computer's guest account I scanned from system preferences.
Thanks for the advice Jason L, and I hope this can help some people out!
Posted on Feb 8, 2016 8:17 PM
