Once again (4 years later), Fujitsu has decided to discontinue support for older ScanSnap models, such as the S1500M that has chugged away on my desktop for about 14 years. A notice popped up on my desktop a moment ago saying that the ScanSnap Manager is “no longer provisioned [sic] or supported.” By “provisioned” I think they mean “downloadable.” There was plenty of previous notice that they intended to do this, starting, I believe, in June. (Gee, wasn’t that WDC time?)
Newer scanners such as the IX series can be used with their ScanSnap Home software.
The issue four years ago was Apple forcing all developers to provide 64-bit drivers exclusively (rather than hybrid 32/64-bit apps). Fujitsu was talked out of it, apparently, because they eventually provided a driver for the older scanners.
I should add that ScanSnap Manager itself did not suddenly melt or otherwise refuse to operate under MacOS Sonoma, but I haven’t installed the new OS yet. If that turns out to be a hurdle, I’ll move the scanner to my 2017 MBPro, which won’t make it anywhere close to this level of the OS, but of course that will add another machine to the mix.
@dave1 ’s original article came at about the same time the pandemic rolled in; I recall searching at the time for alternatives and reading it, but then Fujitsu changed their minds and made the 64-bit ScanSnap manager work with their older scanners again.
I don’t think that’s going to happen twice. Nor do I think that Fujitsu is going to offer another discount to induce those of us with older machines to throw them out and buy new ones.
The S1500M on my desktop reads 50ppm, double-sided, for as long as I care to stack paper into it, and demands almost no maintenance. The only issue I’ve ever had is trying to feed opened envelopes through it, and that’s only because I couldn’t be bothered at the time to find the carrier sheet that would solve that problem.
I’ve tried VueScan before. At the time they had a weird licensing model that worked per-driver, and I vaguely recall it burned me and tried to burn my wallet. I don’t know if they still do it that way, but I’ll check them out again.
And I’ll definitely consider ExactScan, because it seems to be more in tune with a sheetfed scanner work flow.
I have an 18 year old Fujitsu ScanSnap, Model: fi-5110 E0XM; it has virtually not been used. I have no adapter or cables but they are surely easily available. 16v power; old school USB, “flattened pyramid” shape. Needs a good home!
I would like to keep it out of electronics recycling if it could be useful to anyone for use with older equipment/software.
Free, available for pickup in the NYC area, I’ll ship it if you want it enough to reimburse; heavy!
@ace Is a swap meet kind of thing an appropriate use of a piece of TidBits’ bandwidth?
I’ve lost track, but frankly I feel like they told me this last year, but my approach then was (and still will be) to keep using it on the hope that Apple or Mac updates don’t break anything.
When that time comes, I will probably revisit ExactScan first, and VueScan second, as a way to keep this running. If either of those give me too much friction, I may just accept that I got 15 years out of my S1300 and buy a new one.
Yup, it’s not like this is a surprise, and your perspective is a healthy one.
The aggravating thing, naturally, is that these scanners are some of the most reliable peripherals most of us have ever owned. And we’re Mac users, so that’s saying a lot.
I switched to ScanSnap Home and my iX1600 cranks along as usual. I wish the Home interface was as friendly and reliable as was manager. This is the second time Fujitsu has forced Home on users – the first attempt a few year ago was retracted after user complaints. This time Manager seems truely dead.
I did download it the first time and was put off by the interface…not to mention it did not support the S1500M. It’s been a long time since I went into the ScanSnap Manager configuration screen, but my recollection is that it was at least understandable, and bears a close resemblance to the ExactScan interface on their web site.
There is, I’m sure, at least one business reason for Fujitsu to move away from supporting older scanners. I expect they did not envision what would happen when they built a product with a USB interface that users could take along from computer to computer (mine was first connected to one of the last PowerPC iMacs)—even though “USB” starts with “Universal.” There’s no ongoing revenue in updating drivers and software forever.
And I also believe that ScanSnap Manager at this point has accumulated so much legacy code written by programmers who have long since moved on that it looks more economical to dump it completely and do a fresh package than it would take to support it.
The main thing that really bugs me - I’m surprised no-one else has mentioned it - is that the ScanSnap Home software is almost the only software on my M2 Pro Mac Mini that is not Apple Silicon native. FOUR YEARS after the M1 was released!
And there are eight processes running when you are using it.
There are other things about ScanSnap Home that also bug me - the UI is rather clunky, but the main annoyance is that when I try to edit the document title in the Basic Information section, half the time this just does not work and the title reverts to the original one that the software gave it, or else it changes to something totally random, probably derived from the text in the document.
Also you cannot define the format for titles - personally I want to always start them with the date in a sortable form, such as 2024-10-12, but you cannot do this. It automatically gives a title to documents, but you cannot define the format for this. What’s worse is that the automatic title starts with the date, but formatted in non-sortable order, such as (to use my previous example) 12102024. There is no thought in this at all - this is a pointless way of formatting the date. You can’t even easily see at a glance when the document dates from.
But the overriding issue for me is the continuing lack of Apple Silicon support after all this time.
The website does not seem to have been updated for at least two years, as the latest version of macOS it mentions is 13. The latest version of the product is 23, but there is no mention of the date that was released.
There is no mention of whether it is Apple Silicon native, so is its correct to assume that it is not?
Ok all you ScanSnap fans. Maybe you can help me. My ScanSnap 510 died a horrible death a couple of years ago with a ‘fuser’ issue. I never could figure out what was wrong or find a way to repair it. I think it’s a blown fuse somewhere but I was unable to locate it.
Hmm. I don’t mind an occasional posting, but if people wanted to do it more frequently, I’d need to think about some guardrails to ensure it stayed within the community rather than being a general thing.
True words. But “unsupported“ is synonymous with “no longer downloadable” according to Fujitsu. (I think they used the word “unprovisioned,” which makes it sound like they sent the app out into the wilderness without food or water.)