Canon LiDE scanner buttons don't work

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Level 4

3,313 points

Canon LiDE scanner buttons don't work

I have a Canon Lide 90 scanner for a few weeks now and am figuring out the buttons on the front don't work. This scanner is sold on the Apple website and it states there the buttons work as expected on a Mac. But apparently if you plug in the scanner before installing the Canon software the buttons will never work after that, and in addition the scanner is not recognized by Vuescan and there are many other irritating problems.

How would I delete everything created by this scanner and reinstall the software so that it works like it should? My big mistake was that I bought Vuescan Pro for $80 and plugged in the scanner expecting it to work from Vuescan and it does not. This resulted in a huge nasty argument with Ed Hamrick who refuses to refund my $80. At this point I am beginning to wonder if OSX is the problem.

2.4 MBP, Mac OS X (10.5)

Posted on May 22, 2008 10:09 AM

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Answer 1

Clea Rees

Level 4

1,245 points

May 22, 2008 3:07 PM in response to Gnarlodious

Gnarlodious wrote:
I have a Canon Lide 90 scanner for a few weeks now and am figuring out the buttons on the front don't work.

But apparently if you plug in the scanner before installing the Canon software the buttons will never work after that

Where did you find this claim? Can you provide a link?

How would I delete everything created by this scanner and reinstall the software so that it works like it should?

Is there an uninstaller for the Canon software and/or the Vuescan software? That won't get rid of everything, but it is a start.

Other places to look: /Library/Application Support, /Library/Preferences, /Users/yourhome/Library/Application Support, /Users/yourhome/Library/Preferences.

Hopefully, the uninstaller will get rid of most of it and you'll only have preference files to delete by hand.

Make sure the scanner is disconnected, of course. When you've uninstalled, restart the machine. Install the scanning software according to the instructions and see what happens.

You could also try doing the above, restarting and then instead of reinstalling, create a new admin user. Log out and then in as the new user and install the software from that account. (That should work around anything left over in your home directory.)

- cfr

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Answer 2

Gnarlodious Author

Level 4

3,313 points

May 22, 2008 9:34 PM in response to Clea Rees

I deleted all canon scanner software and preferences, rebooted and reinstalled the software and now the buttons work. Vuescan still does not find the driver though.

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Answer 3

Steve M.

Level 5

4,758 points

May 22, 2008 10:37 PM in response to Gnarlodious

Would you recommend this scanner? I'm looking to replace my old Agfa SnapScan. Most of my scanning these days is just a few pages of text (forms, signed documents, etc) that I need to transmit usually as e-mail attachments, sometimes as faxes. Thanks.

Regards,
Steve M.

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Answer 4

Clea Rees

Level 4

1,245 points

May 23, 2008 6:07 AM in response to Gnarlodious

Maybe try reinstalling Vuescan?

Good to hear things are improving, though.

- cfr

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Answer 5

Gnarlodious Author

Level 4

3,313 points

May 23, 2008 7:34 AM in response to Steve M.

Hi Steve. Your old AGFA SnapScan is a high quality scanner delivering very nice scans. If you are doing any photo archiving you should keep it for that purpose. I have one at a location and it is a great old scanner (and works well with Vuescan).

The Canon Lide scans are rather flat, meaning the images lack a certain depth, probably due to the low-power LED (narrow spectrum) light source. Not recommended for photo archiving. Fine for documents though, and the included OCR software seems to work well.

Due to the general crankiness of this scanner and its slow operation I am not sure I'd recommend it for OSX usage. I think you are better off with an externally powered scanner even though it means you hve to keep track of a transformer.

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Answer 6

Steve M.

Level 5

4,758 points

May 23, 2008 9:45 AM in response to Gnarlodious

Thanks very much for your insights. Sounds like I'll definitely be keeping my SnapScan for a while. I do still archive some photos and it certainly does a nice job. It also must have a good bit of depth to its scans, as you say, because I have occasionally taken some nice "still life" scans of objects placed directly on the scanner's glass.

I don't scan enough documents right now to really need a fancier document scanner. I read an article about that Fujitsu that is supposed to work so well with Macs and scans pages fairly fast. But it's too expensive for my limited needs. I guess converting to a "paperless" system of document storage will remain a pipe dream for now!

Thanks,
Steve M.

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