Getting "An error occurred while communicating with the scanner." MFP M277dw Mac

[cupertinotony]

Method of scanning:

System Preferences->Printers & Scanners->"HP Color LaserJet MFP M277dw"->"Scan"->"Open Scanner...", which brings up "Scanner" window.

I can scan single pages from the flatbed perfectly.  However, when I select "Use Document Feeder" and put a 6-page document in the feeder, it feeds and scans the first page fine, then half way through feeding the 2nd page, the error pops up, and the process stops.  Here's a video showing the issue:

https://youtu.be/gsVIttpMZeY

Printer is attached to network via ethernet, & printer's wifi is completely disabled.  Macs are running Mac OSX 10.5.7.

Here are the interventions I've tried to resolve the issue:

- shut off the printer and unplug it for 30 seconds, then restart

- tried from a different computer that is hard-wired via ethernet

- tried uninstalling Mac driver and reinstalling latest driver (dated Nov 2nd, 2020)

- tried using the "Copy" function from the touchscreen to copy the *same exact document*--the 6 pages feed and copy perfectly (so no mechanical issue with the document feeder)

- tried scanning to a USB stick, but the printer keeps saying to format it with FAT (I tried NTFS, FAT16, FAT32, and exFAT--none worked)

Wisdom from this forum is to avoid "Easy Scan" program on Mac OSX, so I'm not using that.

Any help would be most appreciated.

-Tony

[Jay_G24]

Hi @cupertinotony,

I'd like to help!

Try updating mac and printer firmware

To update the printer's firmware, refer - HP Printers - Updating or Upgrading Printer Firmware 

 To update Mac, try these steps - How to update the software on your Mac

Let's try the below steps to see if that helps -

1.) Remove All Barriers: Certain building materials can get in the way of weaker signals like Bluetooth. Metal, bulletproof glass, concrete, and plaster are particularly bad, and marble, plaster and brick aren’t great easy. So if you’re really struggling with interference, your first step should be to move your Bluetooth devices away from these materials. That means no brick walls between you and your devices, and definitely no metal desks!

2.) Change Router Channel: If you have an Apple router and you’re constantly getting interference with your WiFi, try rebooting it. Upon restart, the station will search for a new channel. Specifically, a different channel than the one your Bluetooth devices is using to communicate. If you don’t have an Apple router, you may need to instead go into your router settings and try changing the channel manually. Experiment with different channels to see which one works best.

3.) Move Closer to Your Router: If you often find that you’re getting interference when talking on a wireless headset while on a WiFi call (you’ll know because you’ll hear static), try moving closer to your router. This will give you a more robust WiFi connection, so the Bluetooth frequency can’t overpower it.

4.) Get Away From Microwaves and Fluorescent Lighting: Both emit frequencies of 2.4GHz, and moving away from them will distance you from the source.

I'd like to know the following to isolate the issue further-

1.) Are the printer and Mac connected to the same network?

2.) Is your router dual-band enabled i.e., both 2.4GHz and 5GHz? If yes, make sure the dual band has different SSIDs for 2.4G and 5G networks.

3.) What is the distance between the router and the printer?

4.) Is there an antivirus software installed on your Mac?

5.) Could you perform a ping test using the Mac Network Utility and let me know the results? Use the printer IP address to perform a ping test, the printer IP can be located by selecting the wireless icon on the printer display.

The wireless status menu on your Mac should also give us quite a lot of information that would help us identify the issue. You can press and hold option-click the WiFi icon and then use shift-command-5 to take the screenshot. Press the space bar when the icon turns into a camera. Share the ping test results and the screenshot with us.

Also, check with your Internet service provider if your router is able to forward 'Bonjour packets'.  Bonjour locates devices such as printers, other computers, and the services that those devices offer on a local network using multicast Domain Name System (mDNS) service records. The software comes built-in with Apple's macOS and iOS operating systems. 

Hope this helps! Keep me posted. 

And, Welcome to the HP Support Community. 

Please click “Accept as Solution” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.

Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" on the bottom right to say “Thanks” for helping

[cupertinotony]

Hi Jay,

I appreciate your response.  I  assume you are taking the approach of "too much guidance is better than not enough".  Here is my feedback.

Try updating mac and printer firmware

Mac is running 10.15.7, including the "HP Supplemental Update" designed to fix an unrelated issue.  I am not yet willing to upgrade to Mac OSX v11 (Big Sur) because I have many programs that are currently incompatible with this major new OS release.  Other Macs used in testing are also running 10.15.7.  The M277dw is running firmware version "2018-02-05", and driver version "HP PostScript Driver 19.15". Telecom version is "04-015-001".

 “Let's try the below steps to see if that helps -
1.) Remove All Barriers: 2.) Change Router Channel: 3.) Move Closer to Your Router: 4.) Get Away From Microwaves and Fluorescent Lighting”
None of these steps are applicable as WiFi is disabled on the printer--connection is wired ethernet.
 
Questions:
1.) Are the printer and Mac connected to the same network?
Both are physically wired to a router in star topology using gigabit ethernet.

2.) Is your router dual-band enabled i.e., both 2.4GHz and 5GHz? If yes, make sure the dual band has different SSIDs for 2.4G and 5G networks.
Not applicable as WiFi is disabled on the printer—connection is wired ethernet.

3.) What is the distance between the router and the printer?
Not applicable as WiFi is disabled on the printer—connection is wired ethernet.

4.) Is there an antivirus software installed on your Mac?
Yes, Trend Micro. Disabling it has no effect on my issue.

5.) Could you perform a ping test using the Mac Network Utility and let me know the results? Use the printer IP address to perform a ping test, the printer IP can be located by selecting the wireless icon on the printer display.
Output from Network Utility:
Ping has started…

PING 192.168.0.93 (192.168.0.93): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.0.93: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=0.135 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.93: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=0.139 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.93: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=0.148 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.93: icmp_seq=3 ttl=255 time=0.171 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.93: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=0.121 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.93: icmp_seq=5 ttl=255 time=0.121 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.93: icmp_seq=6 ttl=255 time=0.152 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.93: icmp_seq=7 ttl=255 time=0.169 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.93: icmp_seq=8 ttl=255 time=0.184 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.93: icmp_seq=9 ttl=255 time=0.199 ms

--- 192.168.0.93 ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.121/0.154/0.199/0.025 ms

As you can tell, connectivity is simply not my issue. My original post reinforces this by saying I can print just fine, and I can scan single pages without issue.

My router is a Ubiquiti Unifi Dream Machine Pro. Using its Deep Packet Inspection on the traffic to/from the printer yields the following information:
Name  -  Bytes  -  Packets

Jabber Private Protocol - 7.16 MB - 100K

HTTP Protocol over TLS SSL - 1.64 MB - 5.92K

Unknown - 401 KB - 2.23K

On my router, I have enabled the mDNS reflector service, and opened UDP port 5353 (Bonjour) & retested the issue. Now the issue has changed. It is now intermittent, and only fails about 20-30% of the time. When it fails, it throws the error after the first page, 2nd page, or even the 3rd page of a 3-page stack. Before the mDNS change, it consistently threw the error after the 1st page. I have tested it about 30 times, including rebooting the printer, and rebooting the Mac. I have also tried from other Macs on the network. The issue appears intermittently on all Macs, and after reboots.

As it takes a lot of time to characterize intermittent issues like this, any help in prioritizing the most fruitful mitigations would be most appreciated.

[Jay_G24]

To isolate the issue, could you install HP Easy Start on your computer and use HP Scan to scan the documents and check if the error occurs?

Let me know!