Help with Epson Scanner that has stopped working; Epson support says it is windows.

Anonymous
2014-01-11T16:51:52+00:00

Hi Microsoft,

I'm hoping someone can help.  I have an EPSON Perfection V500 Photo Scanner running on a Toshiba A665 laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium SP1.  About a month ago, the scanner stopped working. I have worked in depth with EPSON support line, and they believe it is a Windows problem.

SYMPTOM:

When starting Epson Scan, the error message is:  "Cannot communicate with the scanner. Make sure the scanner is on, correctly set up and connected with no errors indicated."

WHAT I HAVE VERIFIED AND DONE TO TRY TO SOLVE:

  1. Removal of all Epson drivers and programs using Control Panel: Programs and Features.
  2. Detach USB cable, power off scanner
  3. Reboot
  4. Downloaded current drivers from Epson.  epson13936.exe ?dated ?July ?20, ?2010 2:54:21 PM
  5. Install drivers.
  6. Reboot (required by driver installer).
  7. Attach and power up the scanner via direct USB connection.
  8. Drivers are loaded.  Message says they install correctly.
  9. Device Manager shows under Imaging devices the EPSON Perfection V500 as installed and working.  No errors or warnings.
  10. When starting the Epson Scan program, the same error message appears.
  11. Using Windows Paint, the scanner option is not active, meaning the scanner WIA is not recognized.

VARIATIONS AND ADDITIONAL ATTEMPTS

a. I have uninstalled and reinstalled about 7 times now.  I have tried doing so with anti virus off (AVAST!)  I have tried doing so in SAFE mode.  Still the same error occurs.

b. I have stopped and restarted Windows Image Acquisition service 5x (advised by Epson) with no difference.

c. I have applied all Windows updates.

d. On another Windows 7 computer, I have successfully installed the same EPSON drivers and connected the same scanner and it works without error, and scans great.  So it is not the scanner, cable, or drivers supplied by Epson.

EPSON support says that it must be a problem with Windows

I would appreciate any suggestions on further steps I can take to resolve this issue.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Devices and drivers

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-03-28T16:17:18+00:00

    @Samoht47 and anyone who might be having this problem. I have had this exact same annoying problem and I have finally found a way to fix it. The problem is that the scanner is not finding your printer's IP address. You need to put it in manually to fix this. Go into the printers network settings and find out what IP address it is using. Then go to Epson Scan Settings and add a new printer with this IP address. Once you do that test the scanner's connection. I was having this exact problem with one of my two Epson printers and noticed that the one that had no issues had the IP address detected on its own while the one with problems couldn't find the IP address.

    The scanner settings should be able to detect the IP address on its own. Not sure why it couldn't do it now when it did it successfully before for me. I don't know if the IP address might change everytime the printer or router is restarted as I haven't tested it yet. I wouldn't be surprised if it does as something triggered the scanner to fail and in my case, nothing was done apart from restarting an overheating router. Would be annoying having to manually change IP address all the time though,

    Hope this helps!

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  2. LemP 74,985 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2014-01-15T15:02:40+00:00

    You're welcome.  Sorry none of us here were able to help you.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-01-15T02:31:10+00:00

    Hi LemP,

    Thank you so much for taking time to analyze this thread and try to help.

    I have tried your suggestions, but unfortunately, the problem persists.   Let me report.

    1. (after removed device drivers)  I looked at the hidden devices in Device Manager.   A lot of hidden devices, none related to scanner.  I deleted the two USB devices that were "unknown".    I did not delete from Imaging Devices the two other known devices that were active (a built in vidcam and a network HP scanner).   I installed device drivers, and plugged in the scanner to a new USB port.   Same error.  :-(

    2.  The link to sevenforums was good.  I tried their suggestions.

    a.  Disabled the Windows Firewall

    b.  Added the EPSON Scan to the Firewall allowed list

    c.  Looked for MSN and Box Sync.  Nothing there.

    d.  Tried "Find and Fix Problems" and set back to XP1.  

    e.  Removed several programs that were installed or updated since it last worked;  Google Earth, Google Toolbar.

    Same error in each case.  :-(

    3.  I tried one other thing without success.   It was suggested that we create another user (with admin privileges) and install the scanner in the alternate user.   Did so.  No success. :-(

    Anyway, thanks all for your help.   Let me know if you have any other ideas, and I'll let you know if we ever get success.

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  4. LemP 74,985 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2014-01-14T01:04:01+00:00

    (One additional thing to mention:  I have also tried connecting with a different USB port.  I moved the scanner to the USB port the mouse was connected to.  The mouse worked in the old USB port and still works in the new USB port.  So both USB ports are good.   The error with the scanner still occurs.)

    If your laptop has both USB 3.0 ports (blue) and USB 2.0 ports (black), make sure that you're only using a USB 2.0 port for the scanner. 

    From what I've been able to determine, the A665 seems likely to have at most only one USB 3.0 port, so if you've already tried two different ports, you've probably already tried one that isn't USB 3.0, but you seemed to have eliminated all the usual suspects already.  Before you give up entirely, I'd try it in each of the USB 2.0 ports.

    Before you do that, however, you might consider doing the following:

    • Do steps 1, 2, and 3 from your original post
    • Click the Start Orb, type cmd.exe (or Command Prompt) in the Search box
    • Right-click on the Command Prompt and select "Run as Administrator"
    • Respond to the UAV prompt as necessary
    • In the black Command Prompt window type the following and press Enter after each line

        set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1

        devmgmt.msc

    • In Device Manager, click View > Show hidden devices
    • Device Manager will now show devices that are not currently connected (these will be slightly "greyed out" in the display.  I'd look both under "Imaging Devices" and "Universal Serial Bus Controllers" and remove anything that seems to be related to the scanner
    • Do steps 5 and 6 from your original post
    • When you get to your original step 7, connect to a USB 2.0 (black) port that you haven't tried before

    There are also a few other thoughts here: http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/208339-cannot-communicate-scanner.html (posts 2, 5, 7, 9 (although I doubt #9 is applicable to you)

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  5. Anonymous
    2014-01-14T00:07:36+00:00

    Samoht,

    You're very welcome. I'm just sorry we weren't able to solve the problem. Good luck to you.

    Regards,

    BearPup

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