Dissappearing scanner

[Stan]

I have a HP Scanjet 5200C scanner hooked up thru USB running on a XP
system. Never had any problem until a couple weeks ago when I went to start
my scanner and had a window come up that scanner could not be found.
Thinking I had corrupt drivers, I uninstalled the software (downloaded
software from HP site) , rebooted & did a clean install. Everything worked
fine.
Not using it for a couple of days I tried using scanner again with same
result (cannot find scanner) Had to do another uninstall & reinstall
software.
Came to use it today with same results. Seems that unless I use it every
day, something happens & it disappears. Can someone suggest what might be
causing this. This is the only thing that this happens to.

 

[John Gray]

I have a HP Scanjet 5200C scanner hooked up thru USB running on a XP
system. Never had any problem until a couple weeks ago when I went to
start my scanner and had a window come up that scanner could not be
found. Thinking I had corrupt drivers, I uninstalled the software
(downloaded software from HP site) , rebooted & did a clean install.
Everything worked fine.
Not using it for a couple of days I tried using scanner again with
same result (cannot find scanner) Had to do another uninstall &
reinstall software.
Came to use it today with same results. Seems that unless I use it
every day, something happens & it disappears. Can someone suggest
what might be causing this. This is the only thing that this happens
to.

I'm not sure that this is related. I have an HP7310 installed via
ethernet on my lan on a NAT router. I can use the scanner from any
Admin account. However, no limited or power user can use the scanner
function at all The software runs fine and I can use the scanner from
all accounts via the web browser interface. HP software doesn't seem to
play nice with Win XP Pro SP2.

 

[Don]

I have a HP Scanjet 5200C scanner hooked up thru USB running on a XP
system. Never had any problem until a couple weeks ago when I went to
start my scanner and had a window come up that scanner could not be
found. Thinking I had corrupt drivers, I uninstalled the software
(downloaded software from HP site) , rebooted & did a clean install.
Everything worked fine.
Not using it for a couple of days I tried using scanner again with
same result (cannot find scanner) Had to do another uninstall &
reinstall software.
Came to use it today with same results. Seems that unless I use it
every day, something happens & it disappears. Can someone suggest what
might be causing this. This is the only thing that this happens to.

As dumb as this may seem. . . have you checked both ends of the power
cord to your scanner?
I frequently move my scanner more than slightly for some books and this
happens ocassionally.

 

[Stan]

Tried unplugging & replugging cable, same thing. I can reload software &
it will start working.

 

[Michael Walraven]

Have you checked the device manager? (Control panel / System / Hardware)
Be sure to enable viewing hidden devices and look for repeated entries for
items especially scanners.
Any alerts need to be checked out, I have had faulty drivers/setup on one
USB device show up as problems on other USB devices instead of
the real culprit.

Try removing the device (scanner) via the device manager. Then unplug and
replug the scanner, you should get the new device found and installed
operation. This might clear up problems also.

Michael

 

[Andy Spragg]

I have a HP Scanjet 5200C scanner hooked up thru USB running on a XP
system. Never had any problem until a couple weeks ago when I went to start
my scanner and had a window come up that scanner could not be found.
Thinking I had corrupt drivers, I uninstalled the software (downloaded
software from HP site) , rebooted & did a clean install. Everything worked
fine.
Not using it for a couple of days I tried using scanner again with same
result (cannot find scanner) Had to do another uninstall & reinstall
software.
Came to use it today with same results. Seems that unless I use it every
day, something happens & it disappears. Can someone suggest what might be
causing this. This is the only thing that this happens to.

We saw the same thing at work once with a WinXP machine and a network
connection. Day 1, works. Day 2, doesn't work; frig connection it
works. Day 3, go to Day 2. etc. We replaced XP with 2k and never saw
the problem again.

Interestingly, I'm wrestling at home with an HP printer that had been
installed OK and working fine under XP, and needed reinstalled after
hard disk needed replaced - and now the install program won't work.

FWIW, my least implausible guess in both our cases is that something
that has been updated in XP has caused something in HP software, that
worked before, not to work now.

 

[CSM1]

We saw the same thing at work once with a WinXP machine and a network
connection. Day 1, works. Day 2, doesn't work; frig connection it
works. Day 3, go to Day 2. etc. We replaced XP with 2k and never saw
the problem again.

Interestingly, I'm wrestling at home with an HP printer that had been
installed OK and working fine under XP, and needed reinstalled after
hard disk needed replaced - and now the install program won't work.

FWIW, my least implausible guess in both our cases is that something
that has been updated in XP has caused something in HP software, that
worked before, not to work now.

Have you gone to the HP support and downloaded and installed the latest
driver for your scanner?
http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/support.html

Also XP and USB and Scanners sometimes do not play nice.
Never have more that one scanner connected at a time to USB in Windows XP.
Windows XP SP2 plays better with USB scanners than SP1 did.

Windows Update is your friend. (most of the time).

Some scanners do not work correctly in XP, except when logged as
Administrator.

 

[Andy Spragg]

news:[email protected]...

(tales of woe re HP and XP)

Have you gone to the HP support and downloaded and installed the latest
driver for your scanner?
http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/support.html

OT, but yes, I have. It is the installation program that falls over,
and the original CD version and the downloaded version do so in
exactly the same way. I am having an ongoing dialogue with tech
support about it.

Back on-topic, that's a good point actually. I'dc recommend the OP
followed up the email HP tech support option from the website. I'm
extremely impressed with the speed of turnaround of answer and the
cluefullness of the content (though we seem to be getting to the
smokeblowing stage now).

OP: go to the HP website, search on your product name and follow links
to do with troubleshooting (it's all surprisingly intuitive, HP must
have had a major rethink recently of the way they do this sort of
stuff). You'll need to fill out a brief form including serial number
and stuff, but once you've done that, I think you'll be pleasantly
surprised at how fast they get back to you.

 

[Stan]

HP support is great with newer products, but when I enter the model # it
tells me the e-mail support is no longer available.

 

[CSM1]

(tales of woe re HP and XP)


OT, but yes, I have. It is the installation program that falls over,
and the original CD version and the downloaded version do so in
exactly the same way. I am having an ongoing dialogue with tech
support about it.

If you get the warning screen giving dire warnings about your driver not
being digitally signed, Click "Continue Anyway". The scanner is not
installed until you "Continue Anyway". That screen is there because the
manufacturer did not pay Microsoft the fee for Digital signing. No harm will
come to your computer.

If the installation program is not running or failing, I would think you
have something wrong with your installation of Windows XP. You may need to
repair or do a clean install of Windows XP.

Clean install means to format the Windows partition of your hard drive and
install Windows XP from the original OS CD, do all Windows Updates. Then
install all of your programs.

 

[Jenny Taylor]

(snip driver signature red herring)

What is happening is it gets to the point where it prompts for the printer
to be connected, and then carries straight on and rolls back the
installation and says the installation failed - it gives about one second
before doing so. I even tried again with the connector hovering in the
right place so I could be quick enough on the draw but it made no
difference. It is failing to wait for the connection to be made.

If the installation program is not running or failing, I would think you
have something wrong with your installation of Windows XP. You may need to
repair or do a clean install of Windows XP.

That's what I was thinking too. Then I had the good idea of running the
installation app under control of Dependency Walker to see what was going
on at the point where it threw the wobbler. Good job I ticked every box for
optional log file content (one of which is "use full paths when logging
file names") else I'd have been none the wiser...

It turns out that when it gets to the point where it needs to wait for user
input (click a button, plug in a printer) it uses a DLL called psapi.dll,
and loads it and unloads it once a second; presumably a function in there
has the task of fielding the input. Trouble is, it's picking up a different
version of psapi.dll - not the system version, but one in a different
folder belonging to the broadband software!? It works for the button
clicks, but for the printer conection it loads and then carries straight on
without looping around repeatedly.

How it's getting hold of the other version (which is a full major version
younger and 5 kb lighter) I have no idea, there are no environment
variables to explain it. I have forwarded the log file to HP tech support,
and asked them to forward it to the application developer. I don't think it
is unreasonable to allege that this is the fault of the app?

 

[Jenny Taylor]

HP support is great with newer products, but when I enter the model # it
tells me the e-mail support is no longer available.

That's a bummer. After showing great initial promise, HP tech support ended
up not being very helpful (although as helpful as they knew how to be), and
I diagnosed the problem myself. See my latest reply to CSM1. You hadn't
recently changed to broadband when the scanner stopped working, had you?!