Monday, October 17, 2016

ScanSnap and Sierra Update

Katie Floyd:

Good news, earlier this month Fujitsu issued a fix and an online update for the current model scanners, the iX500, iX100, SV600, S1300i, S1100i. This week, the patch came for older models including the S1500, S1500M, S1300, S1100. You can find more details on Fujitsu’s website. According to Fujitsu, update should allow you to safely use the above scanner models with macOS Sierra.

[…]

Unfortunately this fix does not appear to address older PDF content that was modified by macOS Sierra resulting in data loss.

Also, unfortunately, as Ashley Bischoff notes, there is no information listed for the ScanSnap S500M (which I have) or the S510M. Fujitsu’s FAQ says:

ScanSnap S500M does not support macOS Sierra. There are no plans for adding support in the future since the support for ScanSnap S500M has already ended.

It looks like the scanner has been officially unsupported since Mac OS X 10.8, although I’ve been successfully using version 2.2.12 of the software for years. I also successfully installed version 3.2.80 in a Mac OS X 10.11 VMware to use while waiting for Sierra compatibility. This version is listed as supporting the newer S1500M, but it seemed to work fine with my S500M.

ScanSnap Manager 3.2.90 does not seem to be available as a standalone download, but I was able to install 2.3.80 and then install the update. Even though my scanner is not officially supported, it seems to be working with Sierra (albeit more slowly).

Previously: macOS 10.12 Sierra Notes, Automatic Download of macOS Sierra.

Update (2016-10-26): Some PDFs that the ScanSnap created display as all black in Preview, however they look fine in Quick Look and PDFpen. As I have also seen this with PDFs downloaded from other sources, this may be a Sierra bug rather than a ScanSnap bug.

Brooks Duncan notes that macOS 10.12.1 includes ScanSnap fixes.

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How much slower is it — what operations in particular are slower? I'll soon be upgrading my stepmom's mid 2011 Mac mini, still on 10.9, to whatever iMac gets introduced next, and she's got a S500M. It's currently using ScanSnap Manager 2.2.15, which is dated 2011. The scanner is as fast as could be expected, OCR speed is sloooow but between Hazel, EagleFiler and some software I wrote for her (https://github.com/nriley/ScanningStatus) it's a really nice document management system I'm concerned will break horribly.

I'm still using 10.10 on my desktop because Apple broke AirPlay audio behavior in 10.11, and 10.11 on my laptop because Apple broke PDFKit in 10.12 and I use EagleFiler a lot. I've never since first using a Mac lagged this far behind, and it's happening as my time to spend dealing with these kind of breakages is shrinking.

Also: finally fixed my name; sorry for the typo and thanks for fixing it repeatedly for me!

@Nicholas The time to first page scanned (even if it was already on) is much slower. It seems to take 10 seconds or so before it starts feeding in the page, whereas before it was almost instant. Oddly, the actual scanning seems to be a little faster than before.

FWIW, I just installed 3.2.90 (finally) on a new iMac with 10.12.2 and it seems just as fast as the old version on the 2011 Mac mini it was replacing. Many PDF bugs in EagleFiler, but of course these aren't your fault…

"Many PDF bugs in EagleFiler, but of course these aren't your fault…"

Actually, all the bugs in Sierra are indeed Michael's fault. It's hard to explain in a single comment, but it's true.

"I've never since first using a Mac lagged this far behind (in updating my OS version)"

All the cools kids are lagging these days. It's the only way to stay sane on the platform.

[…] before, the new software really doesn’t seem to work with the old scanners, and it will remove the […]

My S500M is working fine in Mojave 10.14.3 with 3.2.63 software. Was thinking about trying version 6, but not sure it's gonna work. I think it's working because I've been updating systems and haven't clean installed for quite a long stretch.

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