Guys,

I've been having this issue with my Xerox 6505 DN all-in-one, where it doesn't scan when commanded from PC. When I want to scan from the PC, using Scansoft Paperport 11, (or any other program for that matter, even MS Paint!) the program complains that it cannot make a connection with the scanner. Doesn't matter if I connect through USB or via LAN, using a TWAIN or WIA driver (I can see the drivers and select them - but the "scan" button in Paperport remains greyed out)...

I normally connect to this device via LAN (tried USB only this afternoon for the first time just to be sure - didn't work also, same error message). The stupid part is: printing works without a problem. (also via LAN).

I'm using Windows 8.1 Pro (64 bit). Another silly thing: when I first bought this device, I was still using Windows 7. With Win7, it worked without a problem. I then upgraded to 8 and later 8.1, and still it worked without a problem. Then, for different reasons, I decided to do a clean OS install, formatted my harddrive and re-installed 8.1 from scratch. It's since then that the scanner doesn't work any more. Keep in mind: this is the same pc and same OS it used to work on!

I've tried many times to re-install the driver. This makes no difference. The driver is rather old also (May 2013). There used to not even be a driver for Windows 8...

Currently, if I really need to scan I scan straight from the Xerox device to a shared network folder. This is an intermediate solution, which has its downsides. For one, it only scans to PDF and it's also not handy if I want to add multiple scans into one document.

I've been working like this for over a year now, but it's been getting on my nerves lately and I would like to see this resolved.

Anybody got any idea?

I don't know how to fix your problem, alas. Sounds like it's some kind of a driver issue, but I haven't done troubleshooting on scanner drivers in a long time, and the technology has totally changed.

One thing I wonder, this is a totally wild guess: Does the scanner itself (on the scanner's own front panel) have some kind of a setting where it chooses to allow certain users to scan, and others not, and do you need to add the freshly-formatted computer to that list of allowed users?

The name "Xerox Workcentre" made me think of this article, which still blows me away. Off-topic from the question you asked, I know, but I'm sure it will fascinate you and the rest of the board as much as it did me: Xerox Workcentres are Switching Numbers When Scanning.

No, not that I know of. I wasn't necessary before (when it did work) anyway, so I don't think it is.


That, right there, is insanely bad! I'm glad I don't use my scanner for OCR purposes!

I'm not 100 percent certain of the statement I'm about to make, but, from what I could tell...

The number replacement problem happens on everything, not just OCR. It happens on copies, scans, making PDFs, everything. These devices don't work like old copy machines: everything they do that involves that scanning bed starts with a scan and a conversion into digital form, and THEN the next steps are applied from that digital form: printing it out (ie, making a copy), saving the scan (even if it's just intended to be a bitmap of the original), emailing, PDF conversion, everything.

The number replacement issue happens in the first step, where the image is initially data-compressed before anything else gets done to it. So if you own an affected unit, you're screwed no matter what.

And according to that article, upping the quality of the scan doesn't fix the problem.

According to the article, yours isn't one of the affected models, at least it didn't look like it on a quick skim of the list of affected models in the article.

The article says it's definitely not OCR-related, and that it happens for all scans. What's not clear is if that's also true for straight photocopies. But I'm pretty sure that on those systems, a photocopy is just Scan+Print without saving the scan.

I don't suppose it could be a firewall issue?

He said it happened for USB as well.

I thought so too at first, so I disabled my ESET Smart security package (which also includes its own firewall). Unfortunately, this didn't change anything. And indeed, it happens with USB as well.

This is a very strange problem. No searches I've done came up with the exact same thing. Somebody suggested it might have to do with unsigned drivers, but I don't believe that since Windows didn't show me any error message in that regard. And the Xerox drivers are Windows 8 drivers, so I'm pretty sure they are signed.

What happens if you try from another computer?

And another question:

When it worked from other computers earlier, were those computers (the ones that worked) running the 32-bit edition of Windows, or the 64-bit one (regardless of whether it was Win7, 8, or 8.1)?

The only other PC I've got in the house is a Windows 7 64bit laptop. I'm busy with work and not home today so I can't look into it, but I'll do it tomorrow and get back to you guys. Thanks!

Just tried it with the laptop. Works flawlessly with Win7 x64, as I suspected. I can now scan from my laptop and, via the LAN, save the scanned documents in the correct folder on my Win 8 machine. But that's hardly an optimal solution...

Oh yes, this might be of interest too: I used to have an HP Photosmart C6180 all-in-one as well, also connected to my home network via LAN. The Xerox was actually the replacement of this device, since the HP was an inkjet and I wanted a laser printer. I remember that, when scanning from the Win 8 machine, when both the Xerox and the HP were still installed, I could choose which device I wanted to use for scanning. When I chose the HP, it worked just as it was supposed to. When I chose the Xerox, it failed with the aforementioned error message, and it still does. I now no longer have the HP inkjet, I gave it to my dad because for his use it was a perfect fit.
All this for me is an indication this is probably a simple Xerox driver issue. But I have no idea how to solve it since re-installing the driver does not help.

Ok, so I fixed it... well did and did not fix it.

Somebody on the Xerox forum mentioned to remove all the drivers again manually, and doing this by looking at the driver details in the device manager. Much to my surprise, when I looked at the driver details, I could see that the provider of the driver is mentioned as "ESET". ESET is clearly NOT Xerox. Rather, it's the provider of my anti-virus program NOD32 (in the "smart security" suite). The driver is also shown as "not digitally signed". See below :
Strangely enough, including the image doesn't work, so just click this link

So I then deleted all the drivers AND uninstalled my ESET anti virus.
I re-installed the Windows 8.1 x64 xerox scan drivers. Didn't work!! In the device manager, it's listed as an "unknown device". I says something is wrong with the installation of the driver and it cannot continue. No amount of trying or pointing to the drivers worked!!

Then I got the idea of using the Xerox Windows 7 x64 scan driver. THAT WORKED!!! I can scan via TWAIN and WIA. Me happy!!!!

But then I re-installed ESET Smart security, and from that moment on, it quit working again. In the device manager, there is that ESET driver again blocking the access to the scanner driver.

So now I know what the problem is, but I can't really solve it. It's not really an option to work without an anti-virus program. It IS an option though to change anti-virus program, even if this ESET Smart security (NOD32) was paid for.

But before I do that, I guess I'll contact ESET first and see what they suggest...

BTW, that also explains why I did work on my Windows 7 laptop I guess, since I use Bitdefender for anti-virus on that one...

AHA! Excellent sleuthing!!!

YES: Seeing ESET in that driver list is actually something I understand and that I have a little bit of experience with.

I believe that the ESET driver that you are seeing is something known as a Filter Driver. One of my biggest projects at NetMotion (before I was laid off) was to do a ton of complex QA on a filter driver that we had written for GPS's and WWAN cellular modems.

Clearly the ESET filter driver is trying to monitor communications with external plugged-in devices, and detect if the device is infected with some kind of malware. This is actually quite a good idea in theory, if they were able to do it bug-free. But as you can see, their implementation is not bug-free.

Having worked for a long time with filter drivers, I know that it's quite possible for a filter driver bug to render an entire driver stack unworkable. Our filter driver was very careful to install only on driver stacks that it could work on. However, even in that case, it still needed to implement a whitelist/blacklist to handle the exceptions of the stacks that it interfered with. One thing I will say: You're lucky that it merely rendered your driver unusable. In extreme cases, a filter driver bug can bluescreen your machine badly enough that it won't boot at all, and you have to go remove the entire driver stack in Safe Mode. I guess what I'm saying is, "could be worse".

If ESET has a whitelist/blacklist option to selectively choose which device stacks to monitor (not to be confused with a whitelist/blacklist for particular files or web sites), then your workaround will be in there. Or, potentially, maybe it has a tickybox to say, globally, "don't try to monitor any plugged-in devices" or something. That might also be a workaround.

The real fix will be to notify them that they have a bug in their filter driver which renders your scanner driver stack unusable. If they are good, they will respond to your bug with a fix in an update. Wouldn't hold my breath on that, but it's worth a try.

Thanks for the additional info Tony! I had never heard of filter drivers before, but thanks to your explanation I can imagine what they do. I guess it indeed could be worse, but still think it's unforgivable for an anti-virus company. Because that makes their product no better than the very thing they try to fight.

I created a support ticket about it yesterday, but haven't heard anything back yet. I must say they did their utmost best to make ticket creation unnecessary difficult for the customer. At first it didn't even work saying: "this feature is not available at the moment, please try again later", and after that, when it did work, it only allowed a certain amount of characters (but not saying how many) in the comment field. So I just ended up referring to the forum post I made about it on the Xerox forum...

I must admit this is seriously bugging me. I'll give them a couple of days to come up with a decent answer, but if they fail in doing that I'll just kick their product off my PC and replace it with something different.

I've been using ESET for more than 10 years, so I don't immediately know what other product to turn to. I installed Bitdefender on my laptop, but didn't find it quite as good as NOD32. Not that it didn't catch the viruses, but I didn't like the interface very much. But maybe that's just a case of some getting used to. Are there others that are also recommended? Kaspersky maybe? I don't need a full security suite, just the anti-virus product is good enough.

Edit: I see you topped your 30000th post! Congrats!