Sharing a USB scanner with Image Capture

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Level 4

1,042 points

Sharing a USB scanner with Image Capture

Hello there,

We are using Image Capture to share a USB scanner over the network. The scanner is plugged into a "host machine" which is sharing its USB scanner through Image Capture. The "guest machines" connect to that scanner through Image Capture.

It all seems to be working okay, except that whenever any of the "guest machines" quit out of Image Capture, they always have to "reconnect" to the scanner again when they relaunch Image Capture. They have to go through the entire process of "browsing devices" all over again, and finding the scanner they want to scan from, over & over again. This happens every single time they quit out of Image Capture.

Is there any way to prevent the guests from having to go through this tedious process over-and-over again? It would be great if Image Capture remembered all the scanners that they had previous connected to.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Scott

Posted on Aug 17, 2005 8:37 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 7, 2005 8:57 AM in response to Scott Rose

Hello,

Unlike you, Scott, I cannot see the (EPSON 1670) scanner that my host iMac (G4) is sharing using Image Capture. When I open Image Capture on my iBook guest machine, it does not appear anywhere when I browse. The host claims sharing to be "on".

Am I doing something wrong. Or is there a .plist doc I could purge?

Any ideas, anyone?

Thanks,
Christian

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Answer 2

Scott Rose Author

Level 4

1,042 points

Oct 7, 2005 9:28 AM in response to Scott Rose

Christian,

I can no longer get this feature to work, either. Perhaps it broke in the recent 10.4.2 update. I really think that Apple implemented this feature in a half-assed way... it doesn't even seem like many people know it exists besides you & me. I think we're on our own on this, but we should definitely report it as a bug to Apple <http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback> and MacFixit <http://www.macfixit.com>.

Thanks,
Scott

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Answer 3

Scott Rose Author

Level 4

1,042 points

Oct 7, 2005 9:55 AM in response to Scott Rose

It seems like Image Capture on the host machine does not retain its sharing preferences through a restart, and that it doesn't work if you quit out of Image Capture on the host machine. But if you leave the host machine turned on & if you leave Image Capture running & if you leave the sharing preferences checked, then it should work on the guest machines.

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Answer 4

Scott Rose Author

Level 4

1,042 points

Oct 7, 2005 10:00 AM in response to Scott Rose

Actually, now I got it working again over here. This is what I reported to MacFixit & Apple's Feedback page:

Apple introduced the ability to share USB scanners with Image Capture back in Panther. However, this feature remains problematic in Tiger 10.4.2. We have discovered 3 main problems with this feature:

(1) It seems like Image Capture on the host machine does not retain its sharing preferences through a restart. That is, if you turn on sharing in Image Capture's preferences and select a scanner, the scanner will NOT be selected after a restart.

(2) Furthermore, it seems that if you quit out of Image Capture on the host machine, scanner sharing does not always continue to work on the guest machines that are running Image Capture... although sometimes they will remember for a very short period of time. So this is a sporadic problem.

(3) If the guest machines quit out of Image Capture & relaunch it again, the guest machines no longer remember their "previously shared" scanners. They have go through the process of browsing for devices all over again.

Thanks,
Scott

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Answer 5

Sean L.

Level 2

256 points

Nov 3, 2005 5:23 PM in response to Scott Rose

I've been trying to get this to work with an Epson Perfection 3490 scanner on our 10.4.3 machines. After installing the Epson software on the computer that the scanner is connected to I opened Image Capture and shared the scanner.

Next, I opened Image capture on two other machines, but neither one could see the Epson scanner.

On one of the two remote machines I installed the Epson software thinking it might have needed the TWAIN drivers for the scanner. Now on that computer the scanner shows up under TWAIN Devices, but when I try to initiate a scan I get a message that the scanner is busy, or I do not have a scanner selected followed by a window with all the scan options greyed out and no close button (I have to force quit Image Capture). This happens wether Image Capture is open of closed on the scanner machine.

I've also tried connecting using the IP address, but neither o the computers can see anything on port 5100 on the scanner machine.

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Answer 6

Jan 4, 2006 7:36 AM in response to Sean L.

I am having similar problems. We have an Epson Perfection 2400 connected to a machine with 10.3.7. On my machine, with 10.4.3, I can see it under Remote Image Capture Devices and select it, but it always says that it is in use by another application. This is regardless of whether or not any applications are running on the computer to which it is attached. It also shows up under TWAIN Devices, but the result is the same. Current Epson software is installed on both machines. Has anybody found a fix?

John

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Answer 7

Jan 29, 2006 5:47 PM in response to John Baro1

Similar problems with an Epson Perfection 2450 connected to a G5. Right now, I'm scanning using Image Capture without the TWAIN software. (Actually, for my heavy duty scanning, I use SilverFast inside of Photoshop). I don't use the TWAIN software because it is flaky and seems to lose preferences in mid scan. According to EPSON it wasn't meant for Tiger anyway. But Image Capture scans fine. When I share it, I can't see it on my network with an iMac G5. If I browse, nothing happens. At first I thought I might need to open a port in the firewall, but I tried opening port 5100 and still nothing (although it did look for a while). This would be really useful if it worked and it would be so nice if somebody from Apple read this and had some ideas about what to do.

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Answer 8

Mar 1, 2006 11:07 AM in response to Scott Rose

Same here. Couldn't even get guests to see hosts, unless I installed TWAIN drivers, but still couldn't use it.

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