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Samsung SCX-4500 scan to PC doesn't work

I just got a Samsung SCX-4500W and spent about 8 hours setting it up. I am a highly qualified Cisco network engineer, but I must admit that setting up this piece of hardware is no easy task. From the get go, I could not get the wired connection to come up between my MacBook and the SCX-4500W, using the included cross-over cable. Then I decided to try the normal straight-through cable, and the connection came up.

The manual for the SCX-4500W is written very poorly. It was so confusing that I decided to set up the SCX-4500W myself without further reading the convoluted instructions. I feel very sorry for those non-technical users who buy this device and try to figure out how to set it up; for them this is a daunting task. Because I could no longer stand reading the manual and was setting up the SCX-4500W myself, I could not get the Wi-Fi connection to come up once I have configured it. It took another 40 minutes or so before I realized that the Ethernet cable via which the Wi-Fi configuration is done must be unplugged in order for the Wi-Fi connection on the SCX-4500W to come up; and mind you, you don't just have to take down the physical layer on the Ethernet connection, but you have to disconnect the Ethernet cable from the SCX-4500W. If you disconnect the cable from your laptop but let it be plugged in the SCX-4500W, the Wi-Fi on the SCX-4500W will not come up.

Even the setup of the printer in Print and Fax Preferences described in the manual is way more complicated than it needs to be. Why set it up as IP-based JetDirect printer (by entering the IP address of the printer, which most non-technical users have no idea about) when the Macs see this printer via Bonjour? All you need to do is to run the "Printer Driver Installer.app" to install the printer driver and then select your SCX-4500W, automatically advertised via Bonjour, under Default in Print & Fax Preferences. Bonjour helps the Mac to selects the printer type automatically, and the printer is setup within a few seconds. Moreover, it appears that once you install the SCX-4500W in this way, the SCX-4500W is recognized as a printer and a scanner. At this point (in Snow Leopard) you can print wirelessly from any application as well as scan wirelessly from Image Capture, from Preview, and From Print & Fax Preferences by clicking on the Scan tab.

Scanning seems to be working fine over Wi-Fi. The only thing that does not work is the "Scan to PC" button on the SCX-4500W. I tried to follow advice in this thread, but the "Scan to PC" button does not trigger a scan to my Macs.

I have a few questions:
There are three driver packages available for this printer on the Samsung support page:
1. SCX-4500W_Series_Scanner.zip
2. SCX-4500W_SmartPanel.zip
3. SCX-4500W.zip

When you unzip these packages, you get the following applications:
1. ICA Driver Installer.app
2. Scan Manager Installer.app
3. ScanThru Installer.app
4. Installer.app (TWAIN Scanner Driver)
5. Printer Driver Installer.app (Printer Driver)
6. Smart Panel Installer.app

I tried to install the Scan Manager Installer.app in order to follow directions in this thread on getting the "Scan to PC" button to work, and found more applications installed in /Library/Application Support/Samsung/Scan Manager:
1. Scan to PC.app

and in /Library/Application Support/Samsung/Scan Manager/Samsung SCX-4500W Series, the following applications are located:
1. ExitApp.app
2. Install Setup.app
3. Scan Setting.app
4. Scan to Mac.app

This is a nightmare set of applications, with no information about what any of these application (except for Printer Driver Installer.app) does.

For example, I don't believe you have to install the Installer.app (the scanner TWAIN driver) because the Printer Driver Installer.app provides the scanning functionality. However, if you do run the Installer.app and install the TWAIN driver, how do you switch to using the TWAIN scanner driver from using the scanner driver that is installed by the the "Printer Driver Installer.app" application?

The Scan Thru Installer.app is supposed to install a super duper scanning program from Samsung, but I cannot figure out where it is located and how I would go about starting this application. In fact, the User's Guide says that the ScanThru application is a Windows-based software. Weird, huh?

Does the "Scan to PC" button have to use a TWAIN driver or can it use the scan driver that is part of the Printer Driver Installer.app?

Why is there a "Scan to PC.app" along with the "Scan to Mac.app"? We are talking about applications that run only on Macs for crying out loud! By the way, no matter what I did, I could not get the "Scan to Mac.app" application to stay open. It would launch and get in the Dock for a second before exiting.

Also, I tried to install the "Smart Panel.app," but could not see any reason to have it sitting in the Menu Bar. You can launch the "Scan Setting.app" application from the Smart Panel, but it does not do any good because I cannot get the "Scan to PC" button to work. Incidentally, the maximum resolution available in the "Scan Setting.app" application is 600 dpi, whereas you can scan from Preview, Image Capture, or from the Printer and Fax Preferences with the resolution of 1200 dpi.

So, this is a total and absolute nightmare, and I would really appreciate if someone would just go down the list of applications that I enumerated here and explain what every application does.

One more thing - it appears that Image Capture uses Bonjour to communicate with the SCX-4500W's scan feature, whereas both Preview and Print and Fax Preferences (Scan tab) use the UPnP. When I unchecked Multicast DNS under UPnP in Network Settings in SyncThru Web Service (which is the HTTP interface to the SCX-4500W), I was not able to find the scanner in Preview or in Print and Fax Preferences (Scan tab), but I was still able to see the scanner in Image Capture, and I was able to scan from Image Capture. However, for the life of me, I cannot find the setting in the SyncThru Web Service that would turn Bonjour off. It appears that Bonjour is always running on the SCX-4500W, and there is no way to turn it off in case I decided to use JetDirect-based printing to the IP address and port 9100 and not SCX-4500W advertise itself via Bonjour.

Please share any information about the applications I mentioned here if you have any clue. I would love to know what all of those applications do, but the most important thing for me now is to get the "Scan to PC" button to work with my Macs.

Thanks!
 
Same here, Rob. I can't figure out the button, but it's working quite well otherwise with Acrobat 9, Preview, Photoshop and Image Capture.

It took quite a while to get the machine to work over the wifi, but it finally happened. Samsung didn't make it easy to get into the web preferences. Unfortunately there's nothing in there about configuring the Scan to PC button. I wonder if there's a way to setup a default IP that it scans to, since we usually have at least two computers on the network.

Maybe I'll see if I can something working under Bootcamp Windows...

w

robpow said:
Lots of good suggestions here but has anyone actually got the following to work?

- Samsung SCX-4500W wireless printer/scanner
- Mac OS X Snow Leopard
- No USB connection, pure Wifi setup
- Scan-to-PC button on the printer to trigger scan on a Mac over the network

All I get is two short beeps when pressing the Scan to PC button on the printer. Running the Scan to Mac app works fine.

Thanks,
Matt
Click to expand...
 
i find a solution to make the scan to mac work

with this solution it work only throught network.

go to /Library/Application Support/Samsung/Scan Manager/Samsung SCX-4500W/ an click on scan Setting.app. CLick on "modify port" (or something likje that, mine is in french), select network scan, enter the ip of the scan and validate.
Now click on the scan to mac.app , and it work ;)

Note that the button on the printer will not work with this technique , but with that you can use the scanner on multiple machine, without the usb cable unplugged.

next step, the wireless ....
 
i found an answer

everyone! if you're still having a problem, you can do as #5 said, which I did at first and was so glad to have found, or you can just go to the samsung website and find the new driver (or whatever it's called) for the scanner to work on Mac! I realized as soon as I ejected the disk that it was for OSX 10.3 - 10.4, while mine is 10.5.8. The new driver is for 10.3 - 10.6, and i'm pretty sure that most of your problems revolve around the same issue. Just go to the samsung website, and find the downloads section, it's not all too difficult from there. You could google "samsung SXC4500 mac download" or something like that, I can't remember exactly what I did. Oh well, I hope people can solve their problems
 
Jorge's Fix works on SCX-4826FN

Hi, Never posted on a blog before but have always found useful information; fixing dishwashers, head gaskets on subaru's etc... so a shout out to all those who take the time to post helpful info.

used Jorge's SCX-4500 procedure on my Multifunction printer (MFP) SCX-4826FN. Which before my data transfer at the Apple Store worked perfectly on my 2007 MacBook Pro 15". Purchased a New 2010 MacBook Pro 13.3" and after getting the data transfered(essentially a mirror image of the old machine) the Scan to PC button on the MFP did not work. The MFP tried to connect to the Mac except all that happened was a message on the Mac popped up saying scan failed.

Here is where my MFP model software performed differently that Jorge's; When I Clicked the "Scan to PC" something did happen, a window popped up saying that the "Scan to PC" application was DAMAGED! ah-HA! a Clue.

I proceeded to uninstall all remnants of the Samsung printer software and reinstalled fresh (the disc that came with the printer) software.

I then Clicked the "Scan to PC" and I felt better when nothing happened like Jorge said. I followed the rest of the procedure and Voila! it worked.

So thanks again Jorge :) and I hope this update will help anyone with a newer Samsung MFP.

On a side note Samsung Products I find are quite reliable, my wife has a Samsung cell phone that is 5 years old and works as good as the day we got it(although she would probably like a new iPhone :)) We have an LCD HDTV from Samsung 4 years old all good. The MFP unit works very well and I think is an exceptional value. It was $199 CDN at Staples.
 
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Jorge's Fix works on SCX-4826FN

Hi, Never posted on a blog before but have always found useful information; fixing dishwashers, head gaskets on subaru's etc... so a shout out to all those who take the time to post helpful info.

used Jorge's SCX-4500 procedure on my Multifunction printer (MFP) SCX-4826FN. Which before my data transfer at the Apple Store worked perfectly on my 2007 MacBook Pro 15". Purchased a New 2010 MacBook Pro 13.3" and after getting the data transfered(essentially a mirror image of the old machine) the Scan to PC button on the MFP did not work. The MFP tried to connect to the Mac except all that happened was a message on the Mac popped up saying scan failed.

Here is where my MFP model software performed differently that Jorge's; When I Clicked the "Scan to PC" something did happen, a window popped up saying that the "Scan to PC" application was DAMAGED! ah-HA! a Clue.

I proceeded to uninstall all remnants of the Samsung printer software and reinstalled fresh (the disc that came with the printer) software.

I then Clicked the "Scan to PC" and I felt better when nothing happened like Jorge said. I followed the rest of the procedure and Voila! it worked.

So thanks again Jorge :) and I hope this update will help anyone with a newer Samsung MFP.

On a side note Samsung Products I find are quite reliable, my wife has a Samsung cell phone that is 5 years old and works as good as the day we got it(although she would probably like a new iPhone :)) We have an LCD HDTV from Samsung 4 years old all good. The MFP unit works very well and I think is an exceptional value. It was $199 CDN at Staples.

 
Does anyone have a copy of an 'undamaged' scantopc.app as my copy off the CD and off the website are damaged!!

Cheers
 
Final Solution

Hi,
First of all I want to apology for my poor English (I'm from Germany ;)).

I dealt with the Scan-To-PC-problem almost for a week now and finally figured out how to solve it. I am using the Samsung CLX-3175N, but I think it is not necessary and should work with other models, too.

Despite the fact that those voodoo-methods (not offending here :cool:) seem to work for some of you, I have just found out that the MacOS-Firewall is the real problem here.
  1. You have to go to "system preferences -> safety (vault-symbol) (? sorry German version) -> firewall -> advanced options".
  2. Here you have to allow the "Daemonmanager"-process.
  3. Restart the mac.
  4. The Scan-To-Pc-Button should finally work. :)
Hope my guide helps you guys.

P.S. Didn't know you have to study Computer Science to set up those Samsung printers :rolleyes:
 
My firewall is disabled so not a solution to me!

Could you possible attach/email a copy of your ScanToPC app which is located at /Mac Os X/Library/Application Support/Samsung/Scan Manager

That seems to be the problem for me as whereever I download it from it is corrupted

Cheers
 
about the broken ScanToPC.app

If I look into the various plist files I come to the conclusion that the ScanToPC.app is not used as an app but only as a container for the libscan2pc.dylib which is inside the app package.

I am have a CLX-3175FW and everything is working well with the exception of the the "Send to PC" function. It took me a while to realize that the SmartPanel is only for those connect by USB to the Mac and it is useless for Wifi connection.

I can print and I can scan using the QuickScan app. Only thing is that I cannot make anything to pop-up when "Scan to PC" is used at the printer even though I can make the Mac visible using the "Property Setting.app".

So my question to the community: Has anybody got this ever working with a wireless connection?
 
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Scanning from Mac to Canon MP600 - easy directions

After searching through post after post of indecipherable computer jargon, I found Crazy Cat's clear and coherent explanation and link. Thank you so very, very much. I can now scan.

I have Mac 10.7.5 with a Canon MP600. Here is the procedure I used.

First, I had to set up the software. I opened MP Navigator 3.0 (scanner) and chose Preferences.
1) Under General, I browsed and chose a location to save in. (I chose Desktop)
2) Under General, I chose attach to email: None (Attach Manually)
3) Under Color, I chose Save as PDF file.
4) Under Color, I chose "Open the save dialog box after scanning."
I repeated this for both Scan/Import and View & Use.

I was now ready to actually scan.
1) Unplug printer cable from Airport and plug directly into Mac.
2) Open Preview and choose Import From Scanner > MP600
3) Gray box pops up with Scan button. Click Scan.
4) Choose a destination.
5) The image popped up and all I had to do was print.

Finally! I can preserve those old photos....
 
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