CanoScan LiDE 100 driver issue

[Pathguy]

Hi all-
Frequent visitor to MacForums, but first post - ever.
I finally and reluctantly upgraded to Snow Leopard last month (required after I got AirPort Express... but I digress). My printer (Brother 2520HN), USB 2.0hub (an old GE one) and scanner (aforementioned CanoScan LiDE) stopped working, likely due to lack of new drivers.
I have been able to (somewhat) fix the printer, albeit with reduced printing options (no double sided prints, multiple pages per side, etc. - it works, but I'm now using a lot more paper), and got a new USB hub that works. The scanner is still OOC.
I have looked on the Canon web site for updated drivers - none for Mac OS, and under FAQ it notes that they know there is a problem and will be releasing a new driver - "Thank you for your patience." Um... how many months/years do I have to be patient?
I put in the scanner install disc to reinstall the old driver, only to be informed that it (the disc) is not supported by my OS.
The Apple support site shows that the CanoScan LiDE 100 is supported by Snow Leopard. I put in the Snow Leopard install disc and downloaded all the optional items (supposedly all the other drivers), which seems to have worked for some people. After 45 minutes and a reboot... It still doesn't work. I also tried deleting and reinstalling the printer and scanner (also recommended by several sites). It (the scanner) still doesn't work.

Any thoughts before I vent?

Commence venting-
I switched to Apple 3 years ago and have/had never looked back. My top two reasons: Blue Screen of Death and peripheral driver problems. Until Snow Leopard, I have not had a single issue. I had heard of issues with Snow Leopard, hence my delay in getting on board early (until forced). Ironically, one of the touted features of Snow Leopard is to FIX driver issues by continually looking for new/updated drivers. I know Apple has to support thousands of peripheral devices, fine, but when everything worked before and now doesn't, there's a problem (granted, I have a lot peripherals and most work fine - 3 cameras, 2 iPhone 4s, iPod classic, iPod touch, color printer, external hard drive, and a digital CamCorder in addition to the non/reduced functioning scanner and B&W laser printer).

I know it's long, but short compared to the time I have already spent on this. I want stability and compatibility - we're batting about 0.500, now.
Thanks to anyone who made it this far, just for reading, and I hope someone can help-

[DewGuy1999]

Does it show up in Image Capture?

[Scalfani]

I had the same problem. Deleting the canon software and then reinstalling the driver and software from the canon site worked for me on 10.6.4. The buttons no longer work on the scanner, but manually opening the canon software works to scan.

[Pathguy]

Wow - thanks for the rapid replies!

It does show up in Image Capture. I clicked on it it, there was a brief moment where the scanner bar moved (false hope), and then it gives me the same, "Failed to open a session on the device" that I get under System Preferences when I attempt to open the scanner (it shows up there, too).

I don't see any Mac OS software/drivers on the Canon web site... I've looked around for some time and only see the frustrating FAQ answer thanking me for my thin patience while they update their software. Am I missing something? I'm not so egotistical as to rule it out.

I don't think I have any other Canon software to delete (using a Spotlight search).
Of note, I have also tried MP Navigator EX. The program also recognizes the presence of my scanner. When I click on "Scan" with the "Use the scanner driver" box unchecked, I get the rainbow ball for a minute and am then notified that it can't communicate with the scanner.

Again - thanks for the replies and suggestions. Thus far, no joy.

[DewGuy1999]

Did you see these Drivers and Software on the Canon site:

CanoScan LiDE100: Drivers & Software

Choose Operating System: Mac OS X
Drivers Date Posted File Size

icaosx150s.dmg
ICA Driver Ver.1.5.0s (Mac OS X 10.6) 07/15/2010 8.32MB

lide100osx1484ea8-2.dmg
LiDE 100 Scanner Driver Ver. 14.8.4 (Mac OS X 10.3/10.4/10.5/10.6) 04/16/2010 10.84MB


Software Date Posted File Size

smosx140ea8-2.dmg
Solution Menu Ver. 1.4.0 (Mac OS X 10.3/10.4/10.5/10.6) 01/05/2010 .69MB

mpnexosx204ea8-2.dmg
MP Navigator EX Ver. 2.0.4 (Mac OS X 10.3/10.4/10.5/10.6) 03/17/2010 30.15MB

mpnex20oposx100en.dmg
MP Navigator EX 2.0 Opener (Mac OS X 10.6) 09/23/2009 .22MB

[Pathguy]

I clicked the link to the site - it's the same one I've been trying. Under "Drivers" it has the following message:

No drivers are available for this selection. This operating system may not require a driver or, in the case of older operating systems, may no longer be supported.

The pull down menu for selecting an OS has Windows 7, Windows 7 x64, Windows Vista, and Windows Vista x64. Where did you copy the information about the drivers in your post from? Sorry if I seem thick-headed, I generally consider myself more savvy.

I looked at scanners on the Apple store web site (if I do decide to get a new one, which would be a complete waste). The CanoScan LiDE 200 is listed there, and has been almost universally panned for this same issue (lack of Snow Leopard support). It looks like a select few have been able to get it to work, but not most. Again, if Apple is going to list it in their store, it should be readily supported. I blame both companies.

Any further thoughts or suggestions are appreciated.

[Lordedmond]

The lide 200 works flawlessly here with a iMac and MBP under SL fully up to date, with the Canon drivers ( buttons work fine ) and the in built drivers from Apple it will install automatically

[Blue Velvet]

Originally Posted by Pathguy

The pull down menu for selecting an OS has Windows 7, Windows 7 x64, Windows Vista, and Windows Vista x64.

It also has OS X, right at the bottom of that menu.

Direct download
http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/snow_l...ersAndSoftware

lide100osx1484ea8-2.dmg
LiDE 100 Scanner Driver Ver. 14.8.4 (Mac OS X 10.3/10.4/10.5/10.6)

[DewGuy1999]

Originally Posted by Pathguy

I clicked the link to the site - it's the same one I've been trying. Under "Drivers" it has the following message:

No drivers are available for this selection. This operating system may not require a driver or, in the case of older operating systems, may no longer be supported.

The pull down menu for selecting an OS has Windows 7, Windows 7 x64, Windows Vista, and Windows Vista x64. Where did you copy the information about the drivers in your post from? Sorry if I seem thick-headed, I generally consider myself more savvy.

I looked at scanners on the Apple store web site (if I do decide to get a new one, which would be a complete waste). The CanoScan LiDE 200 is listed there, and has been almost universally panned for this same issue (lack of Snow Leopard support). It looks like a select few have been able to get it to work, but not most. Again, if Apple is going to list it in their store, it should be readily supported. I blame both companies.

Any further thoughts or suggestions are appreciated.

As Blue Velvet mentioned, that drop down menu should have a scroll bar on the right side, OS X is the very bottom selection in that menu, once you select OS X, the list of drivers and software (that I posted above) should appear in the area below it. I couldn't figure out a way to get a direct link to the results on that page. If it still doesn't show up could you try a different browser.

[Pathguy]

Thanks to everyone for the support and feedback.
I found the drivers right where DewGuy1999 and BlueVelvet said they should be... I'm starting to doubt my competence, now, since it seems so obvious.

I installed the driver (newer one, icaosx150s.dmg, 8.32 MB posted on 7/15/10), but I still can't scan.
The scanner still shows up in System Preferences, but now I don't see it in MP Navigator or ImageCapture.

[DewGuy1999]

Originally Posted by Pathguy

Thanks to everyone for the support and feedback.
I found the drivers right where DewGuy1999 and BlueVelvet said they should be... I'm starting to doubt my competence, now, since it seems so obvious.

I installed the driver (newer one, icaosx150s.dmg, 8.32 MB posted on 7/15/10), but I still can't scan.
The scanner still shows up in System Preferences, but now I don't see it in MP Navigator or ImageCapture.

Don't doubt your competence, Canon's web site is terrible and I've experienced it in the past where all of the page wasn't loading. So, it's quite possible that when you were there before that something wasn't working right and it wasn't all there to be seen.

It's possible that you may not have all the necessary parts, maybe you could try downloading and installing the other selections listed on Canon's site and see if that helps any.

[normnode]

I upgraded to SL recently, and since then, my CanoScan LiDE 200 has been useless. I downloaded and installed the updated driver from Canon's site, but it still doesn't work.

Investigating a bit further, I found a post on Apple's site, and was reminded that it was the workaround that fixed a similar problem when I first bought the scanner!. Here are the instructions that helped me out the last time:

The only problem is that the driver has a bug... but here is a workaround. The driver looks for certain files with extension ".dat", which are stored as ".DAT", and it you have case-sensitive file system it will say that "Cannot write or read file". To fix this, you should open a terminal and give these commands:

cd /Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ4807
sudo ln -s CNQ4807.DAT CNQ4807.dat
sudo ln -s CNQ4807M.DAT CNQ4807M.dat
sudo ln -s CNQ4807N.DAT CNQ4807N.dat
sudo ln -s CNQ4807P.DAT CNQ4807P.dat
sudo ln -s CNQ4807R.DAT CNQ4807R.dat

Enter your password when required.

This solved the problem on a Mac OS X 10.5.7. I really hope that someone form Canon will read this and include this fix in the next driver version...

Needless to say, the same instructions don't cut it any more. Just for experimentation's sake, I created the symlinks for the files that are in that directory - with the new driver, the file names are different - but it had no effect.

A case-sensitive file system is far from an aberration. Canon should be more on the ball.

[DewGuy1999]

I don't believe that by default OS X uses a case sensitive file system.

[Pathguy]

Thanks to all so far for the help-
I tried downloading both drivers and reset the printer/scanners each time followed by a restart. I still can't scan... The case sensitive driver issue is intriguing, but doesn't seem to work.

Again, just to be sure, I searched the Support section on the Canon web site re: Snow Leopard Canoscan drivers and got the same message:

"When upgrading the OS from Mac OS X v10.5.x to Mac OS X v10.6 (Snow Leopard), due to the OS specifications, the scanner driver is deleted.

Download the scanner driver supporting Mac OS X v10.6 and install it.

However, the scanner driver supporting Mac OS X v10.6 is being prepared.

Please wait for our software release information. Thank you for your patience."

Sigh... It's good to know that the LiDE 200 has the same problem. It is just so ironic (in a very bad way) that a major issue Snow Leopard was designed to fix has actually been created.

[streamflyer]

I banged my head against the wall when I figured out the solution to my problem: There is a switch on the bottom of the scanner which was in the "lock" position. I got the message "failed to open a session on the device". I switched the switch to the "unlocked" position and - voilà - it works!

How in the name of ... should one figure this out???

[jeetendra1]

Originally Posted by streamflyer

I banged my head against the wall when I figured out the solution to my problem: There is a switch on the bottom of the scanner which was in the "lock" position. I got the message "failed to open a session on the device". I switched the switch to the "unlocked" position and - voilà - it works!

How in the name of ... should one figure this out???

Hey thanks a ton buddy ! This is how I figured out (i.e., by reading this post of yours) while googing about this same problem

[bencallis]

Wow thanks so much. Same problem here! What is the need for a lock switch under the device?!

[asher123]

I've installed every updated drive and software, and still get the same "failed to open a session on the device"

i'm close to throwing the device out the window

[DewGuy1999]

Originally Posted by asher123

I've installed every updated drive and software, and still get the same "failed to open a session on the device"

i'm close to throwing the device out the window

Did you see this post upstream: http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost...3&postcount=15

[asher123]

Yup. It was working a week ago. Now it won't. Nothing changed, no software updates or anything else.

[DewGuy1999]

Originally Posted by asher123

Yup. It was working a week ago. Now it won't. Nothing changed, no software updates or anything else.

Have you shut down and restarted your Mac since the scanner has been non-functional? Sometimes that will fix random things like this.