silverfast and Opticfilm120

[Cheetah]

I've installed the latest Plustek driver for my Opticfil 120 scanner ( (5.0.1.0) and the latest version of Silverfast ((.2.0r3), running with Win7 (64). In order to have the scanner work I have to put it on then open SF, choose the right tray, etc ; then I have to switch the scanner off and on again WITHOUT turning SF off. If I launch the preview right after opening SF, the scanner makes two short cracking sounds (instead of just one it makes when working the right way), then expels the tray and proceeds to scanning nonetheless, except that it scans nothing of course (the preview frames are black, consequently). Is it a known problem and is there a solution to have it work properly ?
Thanks for helping.

[LSI_Ketelhohn]

Dear Cheetah,

No so far I have not heard about such an issue.
To me it sounds as if the scanner is loosing track of the tray's current position.

Have you contacted Plustek about this?
They might better know how to solve this.

Kind regards,
Arne Ketelhohn.

[Cheetah]

Thanks for answering. I've contacted Plustek and am waiting for an answer. I'll keep you informed.

[Cheetah]

Hello Arne,
Thanks for dealing with my question. I've contacted Plusteck. They tell me it is a hardware problem and I have to take it back to the seller to have it fixed. So, it's got nothing to do with SilverFast afetr all - which is a fine program I've been using for years on different scanners.
Best regard.

[TomRitch]

I have experienced an issue similar to that reported by Cheetah. In my case I see what I believe to be a failure to properly initialize the scanner hardware. This has happened off and on ever since I started using Silverfast 8 and the Opticfilm 120 scanner almost a year ago.

Here is what I see. It seems success in initializing the scanner may correlate with the sequence of steps I take in beginning a scan session, but I have not determined a clear pattern that will lead to successful initiation of the hardware, nor a pattern that reliably leads to lack of initiation. Simply put, sometimes initialization of the scanner works, sometimes it does not. Once initiated, the system can scan for days. Unfortunately, sometimes it has taken days of trial and error to successfully initialize the scanner. What I do is turn on the scanner, launch Silverfast, load the film carrier into the scanner, click Overview, then in the overview window click Refresh thumbnails. Sometimes the scanner then clicks and whirs, takes the tray in, rescans the film and returns to starting position, all as expected. Most of the time the Scanner Status pane of the Silverfast window shows "Initializing scanner ..." and ... nothing more ever happens. Recovery requires quitting Silverfast, ejecting the film carrier and turning the scanner off, turning the scanner on again, and relaunching Silverfast. When Silverfast is Quit it crashes and an Apple problem report is generated. I believe that if the scanner is not restarted Silverfast will not be able to initialize it. After restarting the scanner and relaunching Silverfast I repeat the attempt to scan. Sometimes initialization works. Once the scanner is initialized, the scans can be wonderful, but I have also experienced crashes of Silverfast at other parts of the process.

I have also experienced the overview not scanning the correct positions of the film. This seems the scanner lost the position of the tray. In these cases, restarting (and eventually reinitializing) the scanner solved the problem.

I am a relatively new user of Silverfast and the Opticfilm 120, but I have fairly extensive experience debugging software. Being a new user I tended to attribute my difficulties to inexperience. However, the problems I have experienced seem related to those described by Cheetah. This suggests to me that my observations might contribute to your analysis of the problem. My system now running Mac OS X 10.10.2 and Silverfast 8.2.0r3 has unreliable initiation of my Plustek Opticfilm 120. I have seen this issue I think unchanged since using OS X 10.9 and earlier versions of Silverfast 8 since May 2014. Cheetah sees problems running Windows, I see similar problems running OS X. The problems in OS X I have seen through several versions of software. I hope this helps.

In other posts I have seen that you are working with Plustek on new drivers. Should I also describe the issue to Plustek, or will LSI carry the discussion over to them?

Tom

[LSI_Ketelhohn]

Dear Tom,

the issue regarding the positioning is a driver issue.
Plustek has provided new driver which will fix this.
We are currently implementing and testing them and they will be included in our next update.
They should solve that issue.

Kind regards,
Arne Ketelhohn.

[Cheetah]

Hello,
As advised by Plustek I returned my Opticfilm 120 to the seller. I should get it back in about three weeks, then I'll keep you posted about the results.
Tom seems to have the same kind of problems as I have. Once the scanner is correctly initialised (how ? that's the problem), everything - but the frame alignmnent - works smoothly. As I see it, the problem may be caused by different things : SF itself (but it works perfectly well once the sacnner is reinitialised) ; the Plustek scanner driver (same as for SF above, except for frame alignment) ; the scanner firmware ; the hardware (as Plustek tells me concerning my request) ; or a "misunderstanding" of sort between two or more of those. Incidentally, I've experienced the exact same behaviour as described using Ed Hamrick's v**s**n pilot and scanner software. That my be a clue to the origin of the problem.

[TomRitch]

Dear Arne,

Thank you for your reply on the film carrier positioning issue. It is good that a possible source of the issue has been identified, and hopefully will be corrected in a new Plustek driver. In another support request I noted that I had the Job Manager issue in which changing the target image caused a crash. I was sent a beta of Silverfast 8.2.0r4 which does solve the Job Manager issue. I do not know if the new Plustek driver was included in the Silverfast beta.

I saw Cheetah corresponded with Plustek and was told his initialization issue was in hardware. I described my initialization issue to Plustek support and was told my issue was in OS X or Silverfast. The correspondence with Plustek is copied below. I hope Plustek's comment will help your software engineers improve reliability of initialization of the scanner.

Failure to initialize my scanner does happen often. Perhaps while a new driver is under development will be a good time to consider this issue.

Tom

Problem Description::
[ OpticFilm 120 ] On first use after startup scanner often does not initialize successfully in Overview then Refresh Thumbnails. Recovery from initialization failure requires full shutdown of scanner and relaunch of Silverfast. Initialization failure is intermittent. After successful initialization all functions work OK.

I use OS X 10.10.2 which is supported by Silverfast 8 but was not a choice in the support dialog.

Hello Tom,

I think this could be the issue from Mac 10 versions. The required operating system and some limitations of the device exceeds the limits. It may work on Macs but will have little issues. Please call Silverfast tech support for this matter.

Best Regards,

Plustek Support

[LSI_Ketelhohn]

Dear Tom,

When you get such an issue please close SilverFast afterwards and restart it.
Then please send the Logfile from the Welcome screen's service dialog in response to your support ticket.
We will take a look if there is any hint towards the source of your difficulties.
(But please send the logfile as an attached .txt or PDF file. Do not paste it into your mail.)

Have you already tried repairing the disk permissions using the OS X Disk Utility?
That can help in case a file is not accessible.

The new driver was not included in the r4 version.
Plustek is still working on it and doing some tests.
But I hope they will release it soon.

Kind regards,
Arne Ketelhohn.

[LSI_Ketelhohn]

Please do not post your logfiles in the forum.

Kind regards,
Arne Ketelhohn.

[Cheetah]

Hi,
In my january 31st post, I wrot that I would return ma OP120 to the Plustek reseller. After about a month, they sent me a new scanner. Until now, it works without problems, at least not those I experienced with the old one. However, I seem to have the same problem Tom has (his february 2nd post) : SiverFast crashes in batch scanning when I double click on the second (or third, or ...) frame in the batch manager. It seems to be a soft related problem. Any solution ?

[LSI_Ketelhohn]

Dear customer,

Please install our latest update.
It should prevent this issue.

Kind regards,
Arne Ketelhohn.

[Cheetah]

Hello,
I did install the latest SF update and the scanner now works quite smoothly. I haven't experienced any problems so far.
Just one question : what is the use of the black and white HDRi (as infrared can't be used to erase dust and scratches on a B&W film) ?
Thank you for your support.

[LSI_Ketelhohn]

Dear customer

The B&W HDRi format only makes sense for the few non-silver halide/C41 B&W films like the Kodak BW400CN.

Kind regards,
Arne Ketelhohn.