Scanner non-operational after firmware update

[Cyber-Wizard]

My Scanjet Pro began giving me  a large, red "System is not ready!" error message on the LCD. After several reboots of the unit, the error message persisted. I have just purchased the unit within the last few days. It was an "open box" purchase with only 39 pages on the scanner but the HP website indicates that the warranty has expired. I set up scanning to network shares and scanned an additional 50 pages or so yesterday without any issues. The following morning, the scanner gave me the "System is not ready!" error message.

I began digging around the HP support site to see if I could find a resolution and opted to update the firmware on my scanner from 5.106 to 6.123. The firmware update indicated that it had completed and informed me that the scanner was rebooting. After the reboot the scanner LCD has lit up but does not respond to any screen press. The WiFi icon is lit up with a warning icon on it (WiFi was not configured) and the configuration button is no longer on the screen. I can't do anything with the touchscreen at all.

The WebUI is still functioning and I can access the https page to look around. I tried resetting the scanner to factory settings using the https interface. It claims that it is resetting but the scanner does not reboot. Nothing appears to happen at all. A manual reboot doesn't change anything. I can log into the https interface and see that my stored document shares are still there so the unit has not reset to default. Powering on the scanner while holding the "?" key only results in the display being frozen just as it would under any other circumstances.

At this point I have a new (to me) scanner that is unusable. Are there other options for getting this unit up and running again or have I acquired an $800 paperweight?

[Cyber-Wizard]

After a considerable amount of trial and error I have made some progress. I'll post it here in case this is useful to anyone else.

Since the previous firmware update attempt obviously failed it seemed a logical step to try and downgrade the firmware back to 5.106. HP, in their wisdom, do not make older firmware files available anymore so I was forced to try to get the scanner to accept 6.123. Despite the scanner not functioning in any visible respect I did still have access to the web interface. Subsequent attempts to re-flash the firmware to 6.123 gave every indication of having been successful. The WebUI would wait an appropriate amount of time and display a pop-up indicating that the firmware installation was successful and the scanner was rebooting. None of that actually occurred.

It was my hope that I might be able to gain a lower level of access to the scanner's operating system via Telnet, SSH, or something along those lines. Port scans showed nothing of any use was open and available on the scanner's network interface so I attempted to force the scanner to boot into another state. HP has long maintained a habit of giving access to other functions by holding down buttons while powering the unit on. I discovered that holding down the HOME and HELP buttons while turning the scanner on caused the LCD to turn green and display a simple text message that said "Into Recovery mode !!". While that didn't seem to open up a new network port or anything fascinating it left the WebUI active and I found that I was able to successfully force the 6.123 firmware into the unit and get it up and running again.

Unfortunately that left me back where I started with the red screen displayed on the LCD stating "System is not ready!" on bootup and still unable to scan. After a few reboots I was able to get back to the normal LCD user interface and scanned a number of documents both on the flatbed as well as via the ADF. That did leave me not much better off than before since it would take repeated attempts to get the scanner to a point where it was usable. Back to the drawing board...

I found that after the "System is not ready!" message was displayed I would be able to access the system functions by pressing the HOME button. The home page would display a warning indicating that it could not connect to WiFi. This unit has not been connected to WiFi so it had little reason to care. The configuration settings would show that it had connected to the wired network and had the correct IP that my router had reserved for it. Unfortunately, despite this network connection, the scan to folder functions would fail. Pages would appear to scan but the display would show the "Scanning" message forever and not save the documents. This felt like a network issue to me so I reset the scanner to factory default.

Starting from scratch again, I disabled WiFi and Wireless Direct as well as IPV6 and Bonjour. I turned off DHCP and set the desired IP address in the WebUI manually. Inexplicably this seems to have made the onboard user interface slightly faster and has eliminated my "System is not ready!" errors. The failed firmware upgrade seemed to indicate previously that there are at least two separate firmware systems since the network interface can function even when the LCD interface does not. That leads me to beleive that there is a timing issue causing the scanner to fail to recognize that it has received a DHCP access and believe that some portion of the system is "not ready".

With all of that done I was able to reboot the scanner without any issues and scanned multiple pages via the flatbed.

However...now that the dust has settled and I'm able to scan again I've found the ADF to be completely unusable. With a scanning window open on the LCD I can see the scan type change from single sided to double sided when I place paper in the ADF so the feed switch is working. However when the scan button is pressed the pickup roller doesn't make any attempt to grab the paper and I'm immediately treated to a message on the LCD indicating that there is a paper jam. Of course there is no such jam as removing the paper and resetting the error result simply in a reoccurence of the Paper Jam message.

I've been working in Information Technology for almost 20 years and have run across many products that worked poorly. I don't believe I've ever encountered product so clearly not ready for release to the public as the Scanjet 4500 fn1 appears to be. Despite this unit having less than 50 pages on it when I received it, the warranty period has expired as someone apparently registered it at some point despite not really using it. As this was not an inexpensive unit, that leaves me with little option but to try and sort out what appear to numerous issues in both design and implementation.

[Kairat234]

Unfortunately I've got almost the same experience with 4500 fn1.

In short:

1. Out of the box extremely slow wake-up from sleep, periodic loss of LAN settings, periodic red OS kernel panic screen.

2. Warranry system doesn't work, world warranty was somewhy over 4 months before the moment of purchase(despite it was an official retailer!)

3. Reflashing to firmware v. 6.123 made the situation slightly better - no loss of LAN settings, but extra problem added - the unit couldn't wake up from overnight sleep, needs power cycling every day.

4. Official HP service center, engaged by retailer in paid mode, found NO problems in scanner.

5. SMBv3 has problems in implemenation, I had to specially open SMBv1 unsecure share

6. HP support was unhelpful and refused to provide previous version of firmware.

7. FTP site was unhelpful too

8. Unit is not capable of correct handling of files over 350 MB, sleep and power-off modes can't be switched off.

9. Total impression - hardware is OK (scanned by now over 10000 pages), scan speed is reasonable, scan setup is poor (e.g. no gray mode, just BW and color from scanner touchscreen), firmware and software are poor.

Whoops!