Just A Shot In The Dark About A Scanner Problem

Joined
Dec 5, 2008
Messages
740
Reaction score
65
Points
28
Location
Detroit
Your Mac's Specs
2007 Mac Book Pro 2.2 Ghz 4 GB RAM SSD OSX 10.11 & 2006 MBP Stuck At 10.6.8
I've got a new problem with a scanner and am posting here just in case one of you happened to have the same problem and have found a solution.

I use a MacBook Pro 3,1 operating under 10.6.8 The scanner with an attitude is a Brother Printer Scanner Fax Model MFCJ-6710DW

The problem is that I used to be able to push the Scan button on the printer and it would scan to my computer. I updated the Brother driver and now that function no longer works. I can scan & print from the computer- just not scan from the machine's button. (That is a feature I use often when I am in the shop with the scanner & the computer is elsewhere. Sometimes I'll scan something form the shop & send it to my wife's computer upstairs. That ability is one of the reasons I bought this device.)

Brother Technical Support had about a dozen e-mails back & forth with me to have me try various things. Finally, two telephone support calls landed me at a person who remote accessed my computer, uninstalled everything, made a big mess of my documents folder and finally turned the firewall off and told me it has to be off to scan from the machine. (The button does work with the firewall off, but used to work with it on. They have an item in the firewall "Allowed" list called NetServer that has a green light next to it, allowing connection.)

Basically, the scan button used to open the Brother Control Center app on the computer & scan. Now, the app does not open & it does not scan (Unless the firewall is off)

I reminded him that it worked (with firewall on) until their update was installed. He said "Apple updated 10.6.8 firewall yesterday" and that caused the problem.
I told him:
1) The problem has been going on since before yesterday. (The alleged Apple update)
2) I install updates manually & did not install any firewall update from anybody.
3) Apple does not issue 10.6.8 updates any more.

So, just for fun.... Have any of you run into this problem? Do you have any guesses how I may solve the glitch?

Thanks For Ideas!
Paul
 
Joined
Jul 24, 2013
Messages
5,108
Reaction score
833
Points
113
Location
Ohio (USA)
Your Mac's Specs
2023-14" M3max MBPro, 64GB/1TB, iPhone 16 Pro Max, Watch Ultra & S10
Anyway to roll back the scanner driver update? I mean unless there was a specific reason you had to update the driver could you just delete all the printer drivers for the Brother and then reinstall the older driver? Or have you tried that already?

I am afraid this is one of those times someone wrote a new driver and thought they had a better idea which mucked up your setup.

Would you by chance have a Time Machine backup that you could use to roll the drivers back?

Lisa
 
OP
PGB1
Joined
Dec 5, 2008
Messages
740
Reaction score
65
Points
28
Location
Detroit
Your Mac's Specs
2007 Mac Book Pro 2.2 Ghz 4 GB RAM SSD OSX 10.11 & 2006 MBP Stuck At 10.6.8
Hi Lisa & Thank You for taking time to reply with great suggestions.

Updating was a mistake. I updated because my scanner is stated to scan at several resolutions above 1200x1200, but the Brother scan program could not allow it. The first Brother tech support person told me(quite mistakenly) that updating the drivers & program would solve it. (Long story- But thanks to the advice of the generous people here, I bought VueScan. It's amazing!)

I liked your "Rollback" plan very much.
At first, I tired wiping Brother off my computer (hundreds of files & folders at over 13 GB) in order to re-install from the original DVD. But, I had left myself a note with the DVD that the OS X files are not visible on the disk. I asked Brother about it & was told to install the printer-scanner on a Windows machine & use Windows to install it to Mac. Huh? I still can't see the OS X programs or files on the disc, even if I view it from Windows XP, via VirtualBox. My guess is that they aren't really on the disk.

Plan B was to ask Brother if they have an archive of the older apps & drivers. They said "No. The new ones work better." Huh?

Until you mentioned it, I didn't even think of retrieving files from a pre-update backup to restore. I did an Easy Find search for Brother related files on an older clone. Unfortunately, the original installation dmg files didn't get saved (If I remember correctly, there were 6 or 8 of them).

To be honest, when I saw that many of the Brother files were in the system and private folders, I chickened out on putting files back in one-by-one. When the tech support guy had control of my computer, I saw lots of files get deleted that didn't say "Brother" or "Control Center" on them. There's no way I'll find all of those because I wasn't smart enough to stop him so I could screen shot the trash bin before he emptied it in advance of his ill fated re-install.

So, if I can crack the code to get to the OS X files and programs on the original DVD, I am sure I'll be good-to-go. Another possibility is that everything will work when I eventually ave to upgrade to the newest OS X.

The Status-
I deleted all files, apps & folders that I could determine were related to Brother. They come in all kinds of names, so I probably missed some.

For now (and maybe forever) I have printer drivers from Apple's Software Update and VueScan for scanning. (Thanks to the good people here for telling me about VueScan. It is great.)

If course, no longer available are things like remote access, remote setup, ink levels and their OCR program. I rarely used them. Faxing does not work, but there must be a work around I can find.

The only item I miss is the Scan button on the machine, but in the long run I gained disk space (lots of disk space) and learned of a very nice scanning program to use. (VueScan really is a joy to use.)

Thank You again for your help & ideas Lisa. If you happen to know how to get to the OS X files on the DVD, I'll give it another "go". Can't hurt. (Maybe).

Enjoy This Day!
Paul
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top