Bug in Nikonscan 4: There is no film in the scanner

Nikonscan 4 often reports "There is no film in the scanner" when I preview all 4 frames of a strip (color neg, Coolscan V ED). This also happens when a Coolscan IV ED is connected, so it's not the fault of the scanner. The same Coolscan IV ED works fine with Nikonscan 3, so this bug was introduced in Nikonscan 4.

Has anyone else encountered this? Or know of a work-around?

This has happened with two different scanners on two different computers running two different Windows (ME and XP).

Thanks,

Mark Overton

Nikon has done a piss poor job of servicing their scanner software if you ask me. Their scanner driver won't work on Mac OS Leopard at all.

Personally I'd load version 3 back into your system if it works properly.

Walt Calahan said:

Nikon has done a piss poor job of servicing their scanner software if you ask me.

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No argument here. However, it's IMO better than the two main alternatives. VueScan has the worst interface and lousiest documentation of any program I've ever seen on the Mac. And Silverfast is outrageously expensive and needlessly complex, with an inteface only a software engineer could love.

Walt Calahan said:

Their scanner driver won't work on Mac OS Leopard at all.

Click to expand...

Completely untrue. It works on my Leopard system on both an older PowerMac G4 and a three-month-old MacPro tower.

I initially had trouble with Leopard on both of these systems, with NikonScan not recognizing my attached/powered-on Nikon 8000. An exchange of emails with Nikon support revealed the problem--the software won't tolerate any other Firewire device being attached and turned on, even if it's "ejected" like you can a Firewire ExtHDD.

This is inconvenient, but not fatal. Alas, with the scanner market shrinking, it's hard to see Nikon doing much to support NikonScan thru the next version of Windoze or MacOS to come down the pipeline.

Mike

Please stop by to get Nikon Scan to work on my Intel running MacPro 8-core running Leopard. Will not run at all. Even with all my firewire devices unplugged.

According to SilverFast engineers from their direct e-mails to me last week, the Nikon MAID driver is not designed for Leopard. Silverfast is working on a fix coming soon for their, yes burdensome, software. Haven't tried VueScan.

The secret to Silverfast is to turn as much automation off. Turn much of what is in ScanPilot off too. Those German engineers are over the top with their design.

Walt, that is a mystery! There has to be something going on with your system setup that prevents it from running properly; that it works on my Leopard system shows that there is no intrinsic problem with NikonScan on Leopard.

If you have not already, maybe you should email Nikon support with the specifics of your situation.

I had read the same thing about NikonMAID drivers. One wonders if we can expect anything further from Nikon re Nikon Scan development, or if it will be allowed to wither on the vine as demand for scanners (presumably) drops further.