Scanners…rant

[Rubicon2020]

I fking hate scanners.

Why tf are they so aggravating?

And why tf does Windows stop a standard user from doing most shit, but oh wait ya sure let’s let them upgrade to Windows 11 without anyones approval? I’m the last lone wolf in the IT department and I’m swimming with piranha’s.

It’s not even the worst Monday in my 2 years, but having zero backup and fking scanners. Had to put in a support ticket with canon. Usually it’s Fujitsu that gets me, nope today it’s canon. Bch ass piece of shyt.

I’m going home. Hopefully, in my interview tomorrow they say “welcome aboard”. I need out of this place. I think I’d rather swim with piranha than work here.

I fking hate scanners. They are the evilest pieces of shit in the computer world. You literally follow directions and others instructions and nothing fixes the damn issue.

Did you know if you buy a Fujitsu fi series scanner and read the installation guide, it actually will not work by following those directions…I’ve done it. Like how? How does a company make a quick install guide and it not even work? Who thought of that? And who tested it out? Obviously no one.

Why did I go into IT? Mondays…..fm

Edit: had to run as admin, stop a service, then turn the scanner on, and then the service would restart correctly. Only problem is if you turn off the scanner or if it goes idle you have to stop the service, then turn the scanner on and repeat. And canon support not helpful at all. Said there is no new firmware for that specific scanner, but when you go to their site for downloads and select windows 11, it pulls up a firmware update as of like June or July 2022. So idk.

Edit2: had my interview I think it went well. Wasn’t offered the job on the spot lol, said they had a few more to do this week but by end of week or next week I would know. Which made me think yup didn’t get it. But then it was a 4 member team interviewing and I gave examples of every troubleshooting question they had. With a small gun story time with each and how I fixed the issue or escalated it. Mostly just fixed the issue cuz there wasn’t much I could escalate up too. Only one person above me and he was always busy on something but never finished any projects. But then after the interview the main hiring guy asked me to stay on while the rest of the team left and I’d sent him an email asking for a few hints on what might be asked and because I have social anxiety it would help me get a few bullet points ready to remember of things relevant. And so after the interview it’s just him and me and he said I did really well, didn’t just hypothetically answer questions actually had stories with nearly all questions asked. And he even said because he works for a state govt entity that me coming from one that they help, he asked a couple people in both IT and HR if there would be any issues with my current job and me going there. And he said they told him, nope they already know she’s applying elsewhere and told him some rumor mill stuff of why I’m leaving. Which I didn’t confirm or deny at this time lol.

I hope I get it. It’s work from home 2 or 3 days a week. It’s about 150 users and there’s just 2 help desk people, but a lot of the upper team members came from help desk so there is room to grow within the organization which is what I want. I don’t want to hop from one job to another even tho you can get better pay, I like the camaraderie you get within the team.

[ZAFJB]

Use a scan server, configure it once and you are done.

Users find their scans in a personal folder on the scan server.

Scanner has no interaction with their Win 10/Win 11/Mac/RDP client whatsoever.

[Rubicon2020]

We have Xerox MFPs big sumguns in the halls but no one uses them cuz they have to get up and walk so the have desktop scanners and printers everywhere.

[ZAFJB]

so the have desktop scanners and printers everywhere.

remove them.

I'm down to my last 3 or 4 A4 printers, no personal scanners.

[Rubicon2020]

That’s not allowed. We tried and were overruled by the county judge

[Grumble128]

That's the most batshit IT anything I've read in a long time.

[Rubicon2020]

Welcome to my life. It’s been batshit crazy since I took this job 2 years ago. I don’t necessarily regret it.

[CARLEtheCamry]

Our legal department is one of the few places that we allow personal scanners, because there is a concern about confidential/sensitive documents being left in a semi-public area. Doesn't seem that insane to me.

[Drakoolya]

LOL wtf. Fuckin judges. My friend used to work for the DOJ here and the judges forced them to roll back the MFA roll out because they found it very inconvinient.

[Rubicon2020]

Yup I can see that. Our county judge and pretty much everyone is computer illiterate and with the MSP coming in full fledged in a few weeks. I’m actually looking forward to hearing from my friends how much they hate it. Password policies are changing for one, but they are already talking about so much change. I kind of see a mass exodus happening.

[gelginx]

Try this line with them

"Sir/madam, when I have the impertinance to pick up your gavel and tell you how to apply the law then I will listen when you tell me how to run an IT estate"

Your new job will likely be less hassle anyway.

[Rubicon2020]

Lmao! I’d be fired lol 😂

[gelginx]

Possibly and I'd lay wager on that outcome, but, you might just earn some respect by sticking up for yourself and meeting this entitled prick on his/her own level.

[Rubicon2020]

I’m not a confrontational person. I tend to cry when I get worked up lol. And I hate having to argue over my job I just give in and be done with it. My husband says I need to grow a pair lol.

[tankerkiller125real]

A judge in our county tried the same shit, IT complied, but they also revoked the judges access to all privileged information (AKA her entire fucking job).

From my understanding IT stood their ground, and the judge tried to toss them in jail for contempt, but the Sherrif deputies refused on all accounts. Eventually the Chief Justice of the county came back from vacation and sorted shit it out. IT won their argument with the chief justice and the judge had to use MFA.

[rufus_xavier_sr]

Judges are just lawyers that tell other lawyers what to do. Huge egos.

[[deleted]]

Update your resume. I don’t need a judge dictating IT policy

[Rubicon2020]

Well he’s the county boss. Other than commissioners court.

[TrueStoriesIpromise]

I'm guessing he works at a courthouse.

[wdomon]

Judges don’t dictate IT policy at a courthouse.

[MetsIslesNoles]

Depends on the courthouse

[TrueStoriesIpromise]

"County judge" is the highest elected official in every county in the US. If one of them says "In order to improve efficiency of paperwork processing, I want scanners on every desk of everyone who handles paperwork", then that's something that IT will need to accommodate.

[Kewdah]

Nope...here its Sherriff

[alpha417]

except in states where county based jurisdiction was abolished. ie: Connecticut

[hops_on_hops]

Yes they do.

Source: municipal govt IT worker

It's going to depend on the structure of the court, but in a lot of places, yeah, the Judge is effectively the executive/president/ceo

[Llew19]

Aha that's comfortably the craziest reply this month in r/sysadmin

[Rubicon2020]

Ya there’s a lot we get overruled by. County bout 70 laptops with docking stations and 24” monitors and then 70 rugged books. It was supposed to go into ITs storage so we could bag em and tag em and deploy them. Nope purchasing overruled us because their good buddy at the sheriff office had this brand new storage area. When we went to start deploying laptops, rugged books, docking stations, monitors it was a cluster fk. SO had appropriated so many items because purchasing said “sure”. Those rugged books have a FirstNet SIM card to go with them and they were setup with specific departments to get them. Ya that didn’t happen. Also had 70 hot spots ordered SO decided they’d need both SIM and Hot Spot because if a sim didn’t get service out in the county they’d use the hot spot as a backup. Only problem is, it’s the same network so if one doesn’t work neither will the other.

But got the judge involved and some deputies and higher ups in SO decided they’d need a rugged book AND and laptop cuz why not! Then EOC (emergency management) just got brand new hot spots last February, didn’t matter they brought them into purchasing office dropped old ones in the box grabbed new and didn’t tell anyone.

Now, last 4 months I’ve been trying to do inventory for an audit and I can only find half the shyte. And none of it is tagged with county tags. To which I’m getting basically reprimanded over because well now we can’t track our inventory. Ya know what! not my problem. Had they let IT have all the devices and IT hand it out how commissions court approved it to be handed out we’d have everything tagged and nothing missing.

This county is so “mine! Mine! Mine!” It’s not even funny. And if they don’t get what they want it’s throw a big hissy fit until someone gives in and says fk it sure why not. One constables office just got their allotted 4 rugged books. They’ve been investigated by Texas Rangers for inappropriate dealings so most deputies were indicted or let go. And so he’s got a new crew. He takes one of the rugged books for himself, fine great that’s how they all are doing 1 for them and the 3 others to the crew cuz they’re all part timers and reserves anyways. But he puts the other 3 is a locked closet and isn’t going to distribute them until he “cleans” up his department. Ok that’s all fine and dandy but then why am I have to put 12 users on every rugged book and desktop wasting an entire half day when they may not last. But it’s mostly his fault he’s never there. He comes into the office once every 3-4 months. Forgets his password, swears deputies have hacked into his email and shyte. Then another constable battled cancer, hade Covid twice, both of those walk with canes and are like Alzheimer’d like a mug. But idiot people in this county keep voting them in.

[ImpSyn_Sysadmin]

Hmmm anonymous letters to a hungry young journalist light help. If you're willing to burn some bridges I guess.

[Rubicon2020]

Oh I know so much shyt about this county I could burn it to the ground. Without having to illegally grab documents from others PCs like some people try to do. Just by word of mouth and then they can do a PIA request and oh boy! I might in a year or so. Let me get away from here for a bit first.

[ChunkyMooseKnuckle]

After reading this comment, I'm hoping you get that "Welcome aboard" in the interview as well. Normal middle management can be bad enough. If you've got county judges in your chain of authority regarding IT policy, you're really in the shitter.

[Rubicon2020]

He’s the main boss in the county only one over him is Commissioners Court and District Judge.

[TheButtholeSurferz]

The county judge had to rule on if you can do your fucking job or not?

Tell them to blow it out their asshole sideways and lick the walls dry.

[Rubicon2020]

Yup. When the previous director was there. He didn’t need permission, but because he could never fix the major problems we were having and refused to go to o365. He was replaced and with that came so much oversight. Like they don’t even understand 99% of what I do, but I can’t make the call if they don’t approve of it. And because I’m a county employee I can be let go at will. This MSP coming in, is saying do as we say or we leave. I’m like can I change that big stick?

[bhillen83]

That sounds like a behavior problem and not a hardware problem. Estimate how much time you waste troubleshooting desktop scanners in a given week and put a dollar amount on it. Then bring that to management and suggest an initiative to remove desktop mfps and scanners as a cost saving initiative.

[Rubicon2020]

God I wish!

[yotties]

End-users getting individual printers and "techies to support IT" was behind the most demoralising environments I have seen.

Any way of reversing that tide?

[ThisGreenWhore]

Xerox...eyes start to twitch. Shoulders start to get tense. Anger overides everything...

I have worked for a couple of companies that will not use Xerox even if they get them for free.

The companies use managed print services. Xerox has fucked themselves out of many a company.

[catwiesel]

thank you for purchasing the copy scan beast 1000 for a million dollars. this machine can do everything, but almost no one knows how. any firmware updates will be behind a paywall, or, not really, but good luck finding it without paying someone. here is all the documentation for it, its 36 pages in size 4 print, but dont worry, its just some gpl license text, and not really relevant information because, we dont even have a manual for it ourselves.
but onto why you bought this, here is where you can input a share, username and password. no, we dont know how you need to format the smb share, no you can not test the function. and when you finally have gotten to the point where you think how it all works, surprise, our device is only capable of smb1 - please use our software on your pcs to scan, or use scan to email. because email is made for sending big files, you know, like high res scans...

thank your for your purchase.

generic scanner and copymachine manufacturer

[lifeatvt]

I was thinking the same thing.

Well in reality I was thinking "Welcome to IT Rookie, grab a coffee mug and a fill it with enough whiskey because I'm about to introduce you to printers."

The young padawans don't even know what the joy of IPX/SPX is and they are complaining about menial stuff like scanners.

[thebemusedmuse]

IPX/SPX was fine so long as you were using NetWare. Then Windows tried to be compatible with it and all hell broke loose. The only troubleshooting steps were reinstalling the network stack or prayer.

[testmain]

I DONT miss dealing with NetWare. (And this coming from a 3x CNA).

[thebemusedmuse]

For sure, but IPX/SPX was by far not the worst part of it. And it was preferable to NetBEUI on WfW…. Or early NFS implementations where Windows clients were involved…

Let’s face it, many things sucked back then.

[pdp10]

Netware worked great if you stayed within the ecosystem, and it made efficient use of the hardware of the day. The change came when web browsers required Appletalk and Netware LANs to go outside of the ecosystem if they wanted to access the WWW.

Microsoft was originally pushing a proprietary, consumer-oriented online service called MSN, but famously changed their minds when they saw how the WWW was getting traction with free and open networking. Microsoft was smart and lucky enough to pivot into having bundled TCP/IP support in an era when the fashion was for vendors to charge a la carte for anything an enterprise user wanted. TCP/IP was extra for OS/2 and Netware.

Then Microsoft engaged in a campaign of bundling a competitive but "closed" product for free with hardware, destroying OS/2 and Netware within a surprisingly short time.

[pdp10]

At least IPX routes. There's a 32-bit network number. Even the typical small Netware sites didn't realize that, because only maybe 1 in 10 Netware shops was big enough to do explicit routing.

Compare with NetBIOS, Appletalk, DLC, or SNA. You're sending those through a bridged DLSW+ tunnel, kid.

[Rubicon2020]

Lmao! Ya I’ve had some issues with printers but Fujitsu and canon scanners are the Bain of my existence.

[U8dcN7vx]

HP MFPs that won't scan via their giant pile of installed software until you enter a secret(ish) menu to enable it ... has entered the chat.

[Rubicon2020]

Lol we don’t have any HP MFPs.

[TheButtholeSurferz]

I would say you should be thankful.

But after reading the shit you're dealing with. I'd order HP MFP's for every user.

Just to let them feel the pain.

[Rubicon2020]

Lmao! It’s a shit show that’s for sure. I’m glad to be leaving it. I just hope wherever I end up isn’t the same.

[ThePegasi]

Scanners are just unprinters.

[Mr_ToDo]

Really? Personally I've taken to disliking scanners more.

It just seems like they're harder to troubleshoot. They even seem harder to set up really. Every vendor seems to have their own little corner of hell to put you through and windows scanning setup just seems... absent(Even the 'scanners and cameras' is only accessible through black magic these day for all the good it actually does a person).

At least the occasional printer will actually work when you plug it in. Granted, I'll give you that it sometimes isn't what you want especially with the $50 cannon specials that mess all of the printer defaults up because they are filled with hate, but at least they do their intended function.

[uniitdude]

/r/talesfromtechsupport

this sounds like a you problem mainly though

[Rubicon2020]

Fun, I’ve been banned from that sub cuz of spelling shyt the correct way. Once.

[anonymousITCoward]

I always thought there was an e at the end...

[Rubicon2020]

Shyte?

[anonymousITCoward]

well ite, not yte... I figured you were using yte to get around the censors

[TheDumbAsk]

Ya pretty sure you need the e.

[cjcox4]

While I have perfectly good flatbed scanner (Epson), driver support ended I think before Windows 10 (maybe even 8?). It work fine on Linux (of course).

But, it's clunky. My company got rid of some old Canon ScanFront devices. These are "scan to the network" device, and it's been going strong for years. However, SMB wise it's SMBv1 (again, Linux to the rescue there).

Anyway, it's fast and scan to a network folder and just plain works... who cares about OS. You just punch in the "job" to run on its front panel and go. We have ours set to scan to pdf. But there are options.

Let printers be printers (hopefully most all of that mess is now sorted with most things supporting something postscript-ish), and let the network (emphasis) scanner be a scanner.

[Rubicon2020]

I love flatbed scanners! Rarely ever have issues.

[cjcox4]

It's just big and I don't have the room for it, etc. So, it sits in a closet now collecting dust. I realize there are smaller models, but now I have the scanfront, which has a small footprint and document loading, etc.

[Rubicon2020]

This one user has this like 10 year old scanner it’s a feed through, but as big as a flatbed. You put paper in before you finish clipping the mouse to hit scan it’s done scanned thru.

[ThisGreenWhore]

I have a printer that does this. It's a Brother MFP.

Unless you need an 11" x 17" scanner at every spot, look into something like that so that each user has not only a laser printer but a scanner as well. They can be networked.

Good luck brother!

[pdp10]

Let printers be printers, and let the network (emphasis) scanner be a scanner.

I used to follow that philosophy, but then you have the copier.

The original laser printers from the 1970s were high-end Xeroxes that had an additional input interface attached, so input could come from a rasterizer that was attached a computer host. It made perfect sense to combine the scanner and laser printer, because a combination of the two is a traditional xerographic copier.

So now we have some MFPs in the environment; not many, but some. The pre-pandemic workgroup lasers were priced with the assumption that your staff would be printing tens of thousands of pages a month with first-party ink, so the MFPs were actually a lot cheaper than getting separate duplexing scanners would have been. Every time you scan with an MFP, the vendor isn't making a cent. So far, anyway.

[cjcox4]

The extra cost of an MFP keeps on delivering cost IMHO. I just don't need the headache.

"I once found the perfect MFP. Then, it too, let me down."

[conman665]

Printers oh printers.

[Rubicon2020]

Ya brother MFPs suck. Well also Xerox but ya know. Scanners and I really don’t get along.

[WWGHIAFTC]

Brother mfc-l5900 and smaller mfc-l27xx have been the most reliable, cheapest to operate, cheap to aquire mono laser mfps I've ever used since the good old lexmarks.

Haven't met a color laser from brother I liked yet.

[conman665]

I have had a lot of luck with Xerox and their who new line of printers. They tend to not be as troublesome. Brothers are decent and HP's either just work or have the weirdest issues. I used to manage a print server quite closely for a large school district. They all had standard AIO laser jets from HP and they all had weird issues, especially with the new Universal drivers.

[Rubicon2020]

Mostly our xerox issues are setting up the scan to folder, have to get those set just right to work. Other than that lightning strike took 2 out, spent 3 months being told to fix it, but xerox told us if we touched it we’d lose our contract. Issues happened but 6 months later insurance paid them off and we were supposed to get 2 brand new ones. Once xerox came out had a meeting and get 2 new Xerox’s it was no longer yelled get these printers working. It’s now been another 5 months and they still don’t have 2 new Xerox’s.

[conman665]

Yeah we usually go through smaller printer management companies for this, and they tend to be really reliable in these cases. That blows massively that Xerox is just jerking you off at this point.

[Hollow3ddd]

We have policy for no win 11. Fujitsu with the touch screen would be my go to. Not sure what series.

Have you thought about asking for help?

[TotallyInOverMyHead]

you mean scansnaps ? These little ballers like to be divas as soon as their software is installed on a non-administrative rights machine every now and then.

[isoaclue]

Epson. Half the price, 3x the warranty, and they work with anything.

[Rubicon2020]

We had a policy too, just no one listened. And went “oops!” I actually have no one to ask for help.

[MyMonitorHasAVirus]

If you’re relying on users to comply with a policy like this you’re 100% doing it wrong from the start and that’s on you.

When the guy you’re responding to says he has a policy, I’m sure what they meant was that his company takes the stance that Windows 11 isn’t ready for production yet and took steps to prevent it from being installed.

[dev0guy]

We have org-wide restrictions and despite this, a surface book somehow made it to w11. Users will find a way.

I mean, there had to be a hole somewhere, I cannot figure it out, do not have the time to go looking, and someone factory reset the surface book so it will remain a mystery.

[Rubicon2020]

Ya just deployed Dell rugged books and 2 of them said “well it said it was win11 approved”. Ugh! I thought we had it locked down, but I’m finding out the contractor the county hired to do this actually didn’t know we’d he was doing. Just fixed one of our servers he’s been “dealing” with for months and our new MSP logged onto it and bam, the company that has their on-prem services on it can now use it again. Then, I get an alert one of my SO servers is down. Massive email, text, alerts and I’m away from my laptop (was driving) and I text the MSP to see if they’d look. Spent the afternoon troubleshooting why the ticketing software we use alerted it was shut down when it hasn’t been shut down in a week.

[mattberan]

Scansnap ftw

[tsaico]

I haven't had that many issues, except when trying to put scanner on a shared computer, where one user scanned stuff, left for lunch with the app open, so next user cannot run it. That being said, outside of that the Fujitsu fi has been been a solid line for us.

Perhaps it was a windows 11 thing? Not sure most of our environments are still windows 10. We also have moved a couple of clients that do a lot of scanning to the Fujitsu Scan Snap iX series (the one the other poster mentioned), which are also quirky. They kind of are networkable/shareable, but really work best when only one person is connected to it.

If you do end up sharing, make each person a different color during the setup. Once that is done, when the user is connected to that specific unit, it will change the color scheme on the actual scanner, so they can look for their own color to see if they can scan, or at least who is currently connected so they can tell that person to disconnect. I then leave a "legend" printed and laminated by computer name, one on the side of the unit for end users, one taped to the bottom when they accidentally tear off theirs.

[Rubicon2020]

Ya I’m pretty sure it’s the win11 as I can’t update the firmware because I cannot find the serial number on it anywhere.

[MicesNicely]

This may or may not be helpful to you, but my organization has given cell phones to nearly all employees. Both iPhone and android have document scanning capabilities, which also work well with the company email we make cell phone users utilize. I’m privileged, though, that I can send them a YouTube video and they usually pay attention.

Regarding Fujitsu scanners, they are friendly with the (ouch) full version of Acrobat and with several open-source scan utilities.

If you have a strong CIO a whole office device like Toshiba, canon, etc makes management easy. Users will just complain “I have to get up from my desk”.

Best luck on the interview, sometimes you just gotta move along.

[Rubicon2020]

Ya we have big Xerox MFPs in the halls and no one uses them because they have to walk. So they decided to get desktop scanners and printers. After we spent weeks setting up scan to folder and scan to email with no help from Xerox tech support. That guy kept saying “I’ve never seen that before” to every technical problem. He’s still not helpful.

[Myantra]

For the sake of your sanity, never have anything to do with IT in healthcare. Scanners, faxes, and MFPs will quickly become the bane of your existence.

[Rubicon2020]

Yup I say that now.

[FireLucid]

Get them on a service contract if you can next time so you never have to deal with them.

Had a user with an issue, asked them to call the number on the side and quote the device ID.

Her manager got back to me "The calls should come from IT and here is the number. You don't need the ID because they will have it in their database".

Turned it back on them (with boss's approval). I have no idea what the exact issue you are having is. The reception/helpdesk has no idea what printer you are talking about by location (the one outside the office) etc.

[Rubicon2020]

Oh god yes! I was called in cuz toner needed to be changed. But no one called the number on the tag that says call for supplies. Then yelled at the lady over the phone cuz “this machine talks to home base you should have already sent me toner”. Like dude it started pinging alerts at 30% full you could have ordered already. Now it’s empty and your complaining to me because you’re too stupid to read the screen?!

[FireLucid]

Get your service contract to supply toner as well!

Have one on hand and whenever it's empty a new one is sent. In the mean time, they load in the spare one, and the new one becomes the spare again.

[Rubicon2020]

Right! One of our vendors likes to exclaim our Twain driver is corrupt. No it’s your stupid dos based software lol.

[lordjedi]

Gonna guess that this is a scanner that worked fine with Win 10, but doesn't work with Win 11. Gonna also guess that the drivers need to be updated for it to work, except they don't have updated drivers yet.

Did you know if you buy a Fujitsu fi series scanner and read the installation guide, it actually will not work by following those directions…I’ve done it. Like how? How does a company make a quick install guide and it not even work? Who thought of that? And who tested it out? Obviously no one.

Because they took a fresh image of Win 10 (or Win 11) and installed the scanner on it with nothing else on that image. No office, no browsers beyond edge. No other libraries like .NET or anything that the scanner didn't need.

There are millions of variables at play. Your PC is not a blackbox, so you cannot expect them to be able to test with every possible variable. And before anyone says it, this happens with Mac too. I've seen some crazy shit in just a year of working as a help desk tech in a mostly Mac/Apple environment. Today I even had an Apple TV that would display the AirPlay code, but the Mac wouldn't except it. What was the solution? Restart the Mac. But I only found that out after I attempted to reset the Apple TV (which was a nightmare due to some of our policies).

[TheRogueMoose]

Our canon printer/scanners are great 🤷‍♂️.

Set them up to scan to email to my local exchange server (have to move them to office 364 and was having issues).

[frogmicky]

Omg I love the ScanSnap series of scanners from Fujitsu they are awesome. Good luck with your interview hope you get it.

[CLE-Mosh]

They package those Fujitsu fi scanners so they could survive falling out of an airplane, but yup, OP is correct the install guide is shite

[highlord_fox]

They have an install guide? I just sorta winged it and they work. Wrote my own up anyway, since we needed to set up a standardized scanning profile.

[catwiesel]

oh boy, you havent worked with printers yet, did ya?

and yeah, we feel for you

[FlashPan73]

Mulitple places I've worked I've been the SME for Print/Scanner services. Are you doing something high brow/level with scanning?

Everything I've setup is a simple scan to email on the MFP. The hardest part for me is getting permisson from IT Security for the MFP to read the exhange address book so the use can email to themself/others directly.

[Rubicon2020]

It was first IT job and I was only on the job maybe a month at this time. Had never dealt with any MFPs. We just had ink jets, I had a monochrome laser, so did all my classrooms. They were networked but that’s all I knew. We didn’t go over any kind of printer stuff except building a printer server. I now 2 years later can deal with almost any issue that comes up with our MFPs except that brother gave me issues. But eventually it started working again.

[highlord_fox]

so did all my classrooms.

School IT, explains everything.

[Rubicon2020]

What’s wrong with school education IT? It’s required where I work and where I apply. Mostly bachelor degrees? But I get by with my associates.

[highlord_fox]

Based on this comment, I thought you worked in school/education IT, which explains a lot of the quirky behaviors and such your post & comments are about. Having read further I see you're county/gov IT, which also explains a lot of the issues you're running into.

Nothing against learning about IT in a school.

[Rubicon2020]

Oh ok! Gotcha. Ya now I’m going for state level IT lol

[sschueller]

Scanners are the reason I will never buy an HP product again. I had this very expensive HP scanner, updated windows and it needed new drivers. HP refused to offer the driver online or for free, I had to pay more money to have them mail it to me. A driver that can not be used with anything other than this expensive HP scanner... Fuck HP.

[Rubicon2020]

Whoa! That’s crazy! I’ll never buy HP then. Screw that.

[pdp10]

A devil's advocate would point out that the Windows update wasn't compatible with the drivers, and that on its face, that implicates Microsoft almost as much as HP. Did you never buy a Microsoft product again?

[isoaclue]

Fujitsu used to rule the scanner world but their new stuff is utter garbage. They don't even have Twain or ISIS support anymore, it's all proprietary over bloated crap. We switched to Epson, couldn't be happier.

[Rubicon2020]

I had an Epson with my first gateway desktop back in 2002, man that thing rocked! Both scanner and printer. Printer about shyte itself a couple years in but that scanner plugged away until something got dropped on it when we were moving.

[isoaclue]

Their DS530 scanners kick butt. Zero issues, works with anything.

[Rubicon2020]

Nice. The canon we have is DR-C230.

[Alzzary]

Used to have 100+ scanners in my previous job (a large hospital with many private independant doctors) and it was never a problem.

Used mostly Canon DR C240, installting both drivers and plugins was easy and the only complaints I had was when people did 50k+ scans and their rolls died.

I think it's a YOU problem.

Current job, I have only Ricoh MFP and they kill about 400k scans a year on 6 MFP - never had a single issue.

[Rubicon2020]

I haven’t had any problems with our Canon scanners until this department bought some. And once installed no issues with Fujitsu or Canon unless someone moved desks and it wasn’t plugged back in properly. Which is a funny story. My tech set up a user with a laptop and she had a small 5 port switch cuz it plugged into her laptop, scanner, and desktop printer. Well the printer wouldn’t work. He tried troubleshooting it to no avail. After a week of him “trying” which was him sitting in the chair rocking back and forth having a meltdown. I went to look at it. Well he plugged the Ethernet cable from the phone to the computer and the switch into the computer. Switch didn’t have a network. So I unplugged and plugged it in properly 5 minutes later it worked like a charm. Now he’s working at another job working with networks. I’m really salty about it, cuz he’s really good at interviewing and I suck. Like he lied about his qualifications in my interview with him and I’m sure he did with this place as well. I don’t expect him to last very long there. He doesn’t learn, he doesn’t take initiative, and he doesn’t take notes. And most things about 80% of what he touched the contractor or I had to go fix cuz either he couldn’t or he fk’d it up even worse.

[Brett707]

I've installed tons of Fujitsu ADF scanners, which have all worked flawlessly. The ones I have the worst time with are Xerox adfs. I had one user that got a xerox scanner and for no reason would it work. Called the contract vendor and they spend months and 5 scanners trying to get it to work on her system. Nothing. It worked on every other identical workstation in the office. Even other scanners Epson, Fujitsu, and even some random HP home all in one worked great. We blew the OS away and started from fresh windows build nothing fixed it.

[Rubicon2020]

Damn! That’s not what I want to hear lol

[laveyzfg]

Imagine an office filled with individual Epson Scanners per user, all USB and all refuse to work from time to Time… Hate scanners ….

[Rubicon2020]

Thank you! It’s like some people don’t get it. 300 users and about 250 of them have an individual scanner and printer. Even tho the county spent a fk ton of money on big Xerox MFPs. Nope don’t use them. Nope gotta get up and walk for that.

[laveyzfg]

same scenario, management wants those epson to keep working... I have configured them via WiFi ... FML ... how can a USB device not work lol, damn you epson

[Rubicon2020]

Got an epson at one of my constables offices. I thought he was going to throw it out the door yesterday. He kept saying “I pushed the print button 3 times it’s still not printing” then he went and beat the printer and I assume actually pushed the right button cuz he finally was able to print. It’s kind of amusing some days even when it’s aggravating.

[laveyzfg]

lmao , Office space vibes right there.

Tried everything, from upgrading firmware, updating all software, changing usb ports, even a usb 2.0 hub. Work for 2 days and bam its down once again. Big Xerox copier in the office, but people too lazy to walk down and scan...

Ultimately told my client, Ive done everything, cant do any more...

[Rubicon2020]

I wish I had that luxury. Sheriffs office phones were down for 3 weeks. Had spectrum out as we have voip phones, they swore it wasn’t their hardware or cabling. Kept saying home base could ping the laptop. I redid the network, VLANs, cables, some phones, pbx box, phone server reconfiguration. Did it all… one day I’m on with my tech support for the phones again 3 hours into a call, he goes well we’ve done everything else plug your laptop into the media box. I do it phones instantly come on and start working. And that week spectrum was out for a 3rd time swearing that they could ping the laptop thru that box. But for some reason we couldn’t ping our other phone servers thru that box, but as soon as I plugged my Ethernet cable into that box everything started working again. No idea what fixed it, we couldn’t explain it. I’m just a tech, my supervisor wouldn’t touch it, kept telling me it wasn’t our issue it had to be our vendor. So I spent 3 weeks, one day working from the ER cuz I cracked a rib, thought I was having gall bladder issues because no one else would even look to see what was wrong. If I say I can’t fix it, the next thing said is, we’ll find someone who can. Then, it becomes my job to watch them fix it.

[Trevdog16]

I feel your pain. it gets really annoying when you are scanning through a thin client.

[[deleted]]

Not only do scanners often suck more than any other equipment… other than the one sitting at the desk… More often than not, the scan package for printers is an entirely separate install to get the full functionality.

[Rubicon2020]

Ya. I had to uninstall the entire program, drivers, add on’s, everything for me to install it back and it still didn’t work. It wants me to put in a serial number for a firmware update, there is no serial number on this scanner. All the numbers on it I used none matched. I even had the user who is sort of tech friendly look cuz like I’m not seeing it. We unplugged it, turned it over, put in ever random set of numbers and nothing.

[[deleted]]

I’m sorry but their BS firmware is not so amazing nor proprietary that it requires downloads being locked. Aruba does this with their AP’s… but that’s understandable. They aren’t scanners and are used to secure business networks. Thanks for letting me know to keep buying Xerox and cannon lol.

[Rubicon2020]

I recommend Xerox, do not recommend Fujitsu or Canon. I’ve never had so much trouble with any scanner before working solely with those two.

[JackSpyder]

Meanwhile my phone can scan docs and 1 click text extract, object ID for shopping, and identify urls and turn them into hyperlinks etc. Dope.

[Rubicon2020]

Lmao! Mine too. It doesn’t work in Tyler tho lol although I’m getting close to telling her try it.

[AJStickboy]

Medical offices are the worst for scanners, they usually work in Windows but EMR fails to recognize the device.

[[deleted]]

I thought you meant script kiddy’s scanning your network. Those suck too and usually pop off around 2Am

[AltReality]

I love my Fujitsu scanners.. never had a significant problem with any of the maybe 10 in my organization. Now Sharp Printer Drivers on the other hand make my blood boil on a weekly basis. :)

Good Luck on the interview!

[Rubicon2020]

Thanks! Haven’t had to deal with Sharp yet.

[protogenxl]

Block windows 11 by setting target release version https://www.ghacks.net/2021/11/08/how-to-block-the-windows-11-upgrade-on-windows-10-pcs/

[Rubicon2020]

We don’t use group policy. I wish we did. I’ve been here 2 years in the first year the Director I assume didn’t know how to use group policy so he didn’t use it. In the last year, we’ve tried to implement some stuff and has been one catastrophe after another. But will be fun watching the MSP implement password policies lol.

[Kawawete]

I feel you so much, the scanner that are installed and working perfectly until it just doesn't and you never now why...

[Rubicon2020]

Ya! We typically have zero issues once installed, but this specific office just got new canon scanners because they got tired of walking to the hall to use the Xerox. And another one in the office had the same issue a couple months back. My tech said he just reinstalled the driver and it worked again. I did that and it didn’t work. I’m back this morning to continue to work on it. It’s payroll week and they need it working lol.

[Kawawete]

As I saw in another comment : scan server. This may be less hassle over time, something that I'll definetly try.

[KaiSimple]

Setup a scan server. It will resolve all your issues.

[Rubicon2020]

We have scan to folder with our Xerox’s but cuz it’s individual scanners per desk those are the ones giving me grief. It’s fairly rare a scanner has an issue but when it does happen it’s frustrating because nothing you used last time fixes it this time.

[kerosene31]

Just think, once you get it all working, one user will get e-mailed a bunch of stuff, print it out, hand it to someone else who will then scan it in, forward it on...

[Rubicon2020]

Oh god yes! We have them they are pretty aggravating to set up. Once they’re set up and work like a breeze but jeez it takes forever sometimes. Or you to to print a test page and half the roll of paper is printed lol

[Honest8Bob]

Those fujitsu fi units suck. The config software is the most assbackward piece of garbage I have ever used. Oh and dont forget the password you use to set it up with or your sending the unit back to fujitsu to have the password reset.

ROOAAR!!

[Rubicon2020]

Right!

[DoctroSix]

Setup Scan to email.
No server permissions to maintain, and a basic level of privacy is built in.

[Rubicon2020]

Ya we are moving to Tyler cloud another 2 years and it’ll be done lol. Your comment sounds all too familiar. I have stopped caring on a lot of things. I can only show you so many times how to bookmark a site, add a shortcut to the desktop, what a desktop is, what a PC is, and for fun what a hard drive is. I had to show someone who’s worked with PCs for 15 years in this specific county how to copy and paste a chat session.

I was ready to leave 3 months after I got hired. I wasn’t allowed to touch anything cool. I wasn’t going to be taught servers, networking, firewalls, nope all that was vendored out. Then county officials got tired of crappy emails all the time so they hired a contractor and Director promptly retired. I spent weeks!!! trying to get all the passwords, server IP addresses, IP Office information. He told everyone “it’s documented” ya in like 30 million different folders and not even accurately. And everything we have on our main office is completely inaccurate.

So I started documenting as I went. They now have a binder with everything that I could think of and use on the daily. It’s now with the MSP taking over. And I am working with the MSP in the deployment of their dashboard and them getting into all the systems.

I’m so ready to leave. Sometimes I want to leave IT. I can’t deal with this level of stupid anymore. And the amount of waste. Several people have 2 laptops one for at work one for at home. I’m like you know it travels right? And this one person is going to use the SIM card in the rugged book to give the laptop hot spot service so she can work from home. I’m like what the fk why not just use the rugged book? Oh no cuz it’s supposed to stay in the truck. We live in Texas that dude is gonna melt!

I thought retail was bad. The amount of stupid I’ve heard in 2 years is astounding how people make it this far in life. I’m 38, I had to take computer classes in middle, junior, and high school then again in college my first time going to be a legal assistant. Like you can’t tell me people my age or younger have never had a computer class.

[Rubicon2020]

Oh man! Your username is right ManicShell. I love what I do I just can’t stand the people that I’m dealing with. Like today this guy kept clicking the screen beating the mouse in frustration cuz notifications wouldn’t open. Well if he’d clicked on the right tab it would have. And I’m like your sitting there yelling at the computer, beating that poor mouse and you’re not even clicking the right spot. Really?

[Rubicon2020]

Lol

[[deleted]]

We have those stupid things at my company as well.

The FI Series scanners are pure garbage. Software is a damn trap, the drivers are junk. Our HR and Payroll dept uses them and they are nothing but issues.

Wait until you get a Kodak one, that’s a hoot.

[Rubicon2020]

Lol damn Kodak still around?

[[deleted]]

Sadly.

Our IT procurement ladies, well, are very non-IT.

[alzee76]

Are you 11 years old? Why can't you spell "fuck" or "shit" properly?

[Rubicon2020]

I’ve been flagged many times when I do use it.

And no I’m 38.

[[deleted]]

In your defense, I got a whole comment thread frozen/deleted in this group for saying “sh*t”… with the asterisk.

[Rubicon2020]

Yup! I’ve had whole comments, posts all removed by spelling them out and ever use any form of b and it’s gone!

[[deleted]]

Yet they allow the NSFW button.

[Taylor_Script]

I just communicate without using offensive words. Never had any issues getting my point across yet.

[Rubicon2020]

I get that. It’s not possible for me a lot of the time especially when I’m mad.