Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

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Timur Born
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Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Timur Born »

Hello.

When I scan something into Editor then the option to scan Duplex via "Hardware" only scans the front side of my pages, despite my scanner (HP Laserjet Pro 500 color MFP M570dn) being able to scan duplex.

I suspect that the communication between Editor and WIA doesn't work as expected?!
Timur Born
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Timur Born »

I reinstalled the TWAIN driver, which does the duplex part on its own and then hands over all front and back pages to Editor. Nevertheless this should work using WIA, too. Windows Scan & Fax application can do duplex scans via WIA using the very same driver.
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello Timur,
For now, as Twain works, please continue using that one.
The issue is that at the moment, we do not yet support Hardware Duplex in WIA. Currently, we support TWAIN in both 32 and 64 versions, so there should not be any problems duplex scanning using TWAIN drivers. I've spoken with the development team, and it is something on the list to be implemented in a future release. I cannot guarantee a timeline, but know that it is already planned.

Have a great day!
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Timur Born »

My suggestion would be to remove the option with WIA driver selection then, as it is not supported and only confuses users (such as me) into thinking it should work.

I also noticed that Editor offers "native" mode for WIA drivers when the "Default" driver is chosen instead of the specific WIA driver. This happened when the WIA driver was the only one installed anyway.
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello Timur,
Thank you for the suggestion, I will forward that to the appropriate developer.

In regards to "native" mode, to my knowledge, this uses whichever drivers are available on the system for the device, ignoring those that we provide, meaning that they can have their own advantages and limitations independent of how ours work.
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Timur Born »

To my knowledge WIA does not offer a "native" mode and when the WIA driver is specifically selected in Editor then Editor removes the option to chose this.
WIA_select.png
But when Editor is set to use the Default driver, which happens to be WIA, then the option is usable again despite it not doing anything anyway. Interestingly the default driver now switched to Twain on my system, despite it being WIA this morning. Regardless of that the option still was present when the WIA driver was the only one selectable anway (before I reinstalled by Twain drivers).
WIA_default.png
So in order to not confuse users with options that are not usable anyway you should remove said options whenever they provide no function. This includes Scan Interface (Native), Duplex (Hardware) and all the other options in Editor that present non-working options (like "Enhance Thin Lines").

On a side note: As you can see in the screenshots the Scan dialog does not like my increased Windows DPI setting (120%). Other dialogs (like Preferences or Print) don't suffer from this.
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Timur Born »

Just to mention it: The whole reason why I used WIA to begin with was that the Twain driver vanished on my system after I installed HP's universal print driver and removed the 2 years older dedicated print driver of my printer. I am back to the older dedicated one now, including Twain.
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello Timur,

Firstly, thank you for finding that UI scaling bug, I've created a ticket to handle that: #4482.

As mentioned before, we are working to support WIA duplex scanning, but for the moment it is not possible. This means that you will need to use TWAIN or the drivers that come with the scanning device instead.
Timur Born wrote:To my knowledge WIA does not offer a "native" mode
WIA is in of itself a "generic" driver used for many devices, while TWAIN uses a dialog created by the device manufacturer, Allowing more control over the results.
Timur Born wrote: when Editor is set to use the Default driver, which happens to be WIA, then the option is usable again despite it not doing anything anyway
When the editor reports that WIA is being used for native mode, That simply means it is what we've been told will be used in this case. It is possible that the driver is WIA, but it is accessed through a TWAIN compatibility layer. This should not however impact the functionality of the device.
Timur Born wrote:Interestingly the default driver now switched to Twain on my system, despite it being WIA this morning. Regardless of that the option still was present when the WIA driver was the only one selectable anway (before I reinstalled by Twain drivers).
We provide WIA and TWAIN drivers to ensure that there is something available, in cases where our files have been removed, or otherwise compromised, the defaults that appear in Windows, or that are available from the devices themselves will be used.
Timur Born wrote:So in order to not confuse users with options that are not usable anyway you should remove said options whenever they provide no function. This includes Scan Interface (Native), Duplex (Hardware) and all the other options in Editor that present non-working options (like "Enhance Thin Lines").
There are many differing situations where it might seem like nothing happens, or no effect is noticeable, but that is often due to there being no difference in the result, not necessarily that there is not alternative method behind those results. Detecting all of these situations and dynamically hiding and disabling these functions would be a large resource drain, for little to no gain on ours, or our users end.
I do see some functions like the "Enhance Thin Lines" which was in progress, and we've simply missed disabling them in the past. In other cases, like your issues above, it is unlikely we will look into dynamically disabling features in select cases where the results would not change due to certain functions being chosen. This would be like removing macros from our Bates numbering function simply because they are available in the header/footer dialog. We prefer that people get the option to use their preferred method, even if the choices are nearly identical, or have the same results.
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Timur Born »

The scan dialog already *does* dynamically hide options (by emptying the corresponding dropdown menu) for the "Data Transfer Method" when WIA is chosen, and most of the other fields when the "Show native UI" option is disabled. So I would assume that doing the same for the "Sides" option would be quite possible. Anyway, now that I know that this options does nothing I can just ignore it.

BTW, I just tried to scan via TWAIN while disabling the "Show native UI" option and had the Duplex (Hardware) option enabled. After the sheet was pulled through the feeder Editor kept its "Scanning" popup open and never finished the scan. There also was no way to abort the scan other than forcing Editor to close via Task Manager.

So I will keep using TWAIN via its own native UI, which seems to work most reliably.
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Thank you for the feedback, We will take it into account.

For the second paragraph here, could you send a screenshot of the "scanning" dialog you are seeing that led you to force close the Editor?

I am glad to hear youve found a workaround for the time being, Apologies we could not find you an immediate solution.
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Timur Born »

It was the popup where it says "Scanning Documents..." with an animated bar. When I tried to reproduce it today it didn't happen. Both the computer and printer/scanner were turned off in between, so I assume some communication hangup between the two happened before.

I will report back if it happens again, but for the time being I should (hopefully) be finished with all the document scanning I had to do lately.
Last edited by Timur Born on Fri Sep 07, 2018 9:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Tracker Supp-Stefan
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hi Timur,

Thanks for the feedback!
Hope it was a one off indeed and you will manage to do all your scanning as needed!

Cheers,
Stefan
Timur Born
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Timur Born »

I found one consistent way of making Editor getting stuck at the "Scanning documents..." step: When I scan via TWAIN at 1200 DPI (flatbed) using either HP's native scan UI or using Editor's settings. There is no CPU/drive load happening while the popup remains on screen and the only way to end Editor is by Task-Manager.

No problem using WIA at that resolution.
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello Timur,

Thanks - if a consistent way exists for reproducing a problem - this can be investigated easier! I've just asked a colleague from the dev team to take a look, and he will investigate this further.
We will most likely need the exact make and model of your scanner, as well as a link to exactly the same drivers that you use for it.

Regards,
Stefan
Timur Born
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Timur Born »

HP Laserjet Pro 500 color MFP (M570dn). It's not a practical problem for me, because usually there is no reason to scan at 1200 DPI (the native optical resolution of the scanner is only 600 DPI anyway). But this was one way to consistently reproduce the issue that I experienced before while *not* using 1200 DPI. In any way I wouldn't call it high or even medium priority at all.
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hi Timur,
Could you send us a link to the download for the driver version you are using as well? we will need these to ensure the investigation goes as smoothly as possible.
Thank you!
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Thank you for that Timur,
I also just realized as I'm creating a ticket for the matter, I'm not sure which of your machines you've been testing this on, What version of windows is running and what architecture (32 or 64 bit)?
And also, are you using the 32 or 64 bit version of the Editor?
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Timur Born »

Windows 10 (1803) Pro 64 bit + Editor 326.1 64 bit
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Thanks Timur,

This is now with the dev team for further investigation.
And glad to hear that this is not too critical for you!

Cheers,
Stefan
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Timur Born »

Unfortunately I ran into the next culprit today. Trying to scan double sided pages at 200 DPI via TWAIN it turns out that once I try more than 5 pages (=10 sides) XChange does not import the pages from TWAIN anymore. HP Twain claims to save the pages, but Editor gets stuck (no CPU load or anything). Up to 5 pages work fine and 11 single sided work as well.
scanning_forever.JPG
On a side note: When there is a paper jam in the scanning feeder then Editor gets lost just the same even after the jam is solved (=stuck at animated bar).
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello Timur,

Thanks for the report. I've passed it to one of our devs dealing with the scanning element of our products - and he will investigate this shortly!

Regards,
Stefan
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Timur Born »

It's not possible to cancel the operation once Editor gets stuck. The only way to get out is to end Editor via Task-Manager.
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Thanks Timur,

As you will notice in some of your other topics - our devs have today off, so I expect feedback on this scanning issue tomorrow in the European afternoon.

Regards,
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Timur Born »

No hurry, once I understood the problem I scanned using less pages per run and thus finished the scanned document.
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Roman - Tracker Supp »

Hello Timur,
Unfortunately I ran into the next culprit today. Trying to scan double sided pages at 200 DPI via TWAIN it turns out that once I try more than 5 pages (=10 sides) XChange does not import the pages from TWAIN anymore.
1. Assuming that:
- you are still using 64-bit PDF-X Editor of build 326.1;
- you use 32-bit TWAIN driver for your scanner,
please try to reproduce the issue with renamed/deleted twaindsm32.dll in the Editor installation directory ("%ProgramFiles%\Tracker Software\PDF Editor" by default) - in this case the system TWAIN DSM will be used.

2. Please try to reproduce the issue using portable (so that you will be have to uninstall your currrent 64-bit Editor) 32-bit Editor. You can find the portable Editor package in the Editor download options on our website.

Please let us know the outcome of these tests.
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Timur Born »

I finally found time to check this.
1. Assuming that:
- you are still using 64-bit PDF-X Editor of build 326.1;
- you use 32-bit TWAIN driver for your scanner,
please try to reproduce the issue with renamed/deleted twaindsm32.dll in the Editor installation directory ("%ProgramFiles%\Tracker Software\PDF Editor" by default) - in this case the system TWAIN DSM will be used.
I am using 327 and there is no twaindsm32.dll. Instead there are two folders, one X86 and one X64, in both there is a twaindsm.dll file. It does not matter which one I rename (even both) the results are the same. So it seems that these DLLs are not even used for Twain scanning?

Furthermore I noticed that Windows imgsvc and stisvc are both involved in the process, the latter of which identifies itself as WIA, though. I also wonder why PDFXHost32.exe is running instead of PDFXHost64.exe?

Next I will try the portable version and report back.
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Timur Born »

Both the 32 bit and the portable version can scan 6 pages (12 sides) using the Twain 32 bit driver, only the 64 bit version of Editor is stuck at 5 pages (10 sides). So this is a conflict between 64 bit Editor and 32 bit Twain.

On a side-note: The portable version wrongly identifies two additional Twain sources, one opens the WIA scan dialog and the other is a SD card reader.
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Roman - Tracker Supp »

Hi Timur,
Thanks for your detailed report. Please see your E-mail for further steps.
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Timur Born »

It's been some time since I sent in all the logs you needed. Will the next version of Editor include fixes for these issues?

I also noticed another scan related problem: Editor allows me to chose DPI settings that are not supported my my scanner (driver), like 150 DPI. As a result I get a scan of very low resolution (likely lowest possible) instead of getting a proper error message or not being allowed to use wrong settings in the first place.
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Re: Hardware Duplex scan does not scan duplex

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello Timur,

I believe Roman is working with you on arranging a remote session so that he can investigate things further!

Regards,
Stefan
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