Nikon Scan 4 and Snow Leopard
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 13:11 My dad switched to an iMac a couple of weeks ago. He came from a Windows environment with lots of periferals (RF Mouse, Bluetooth dongle, HP flatbed Scanner, Espon printer, Nikon CoolScan V, HP PDA, etc.). So the challenge was to migrate as many periferals as possible.
Thankfully, most of them worked. Even the old Nikon CoolScan V film scanner worked with the supplied Nikon Scan 4 software, until last Sunday. For some reason the application crashes with a message that the preferences file can't be read (Is another instance of Nikon Scan 4 running??).
It seemed that the Nikon app wasn't shut down properly on one occasion and a lock file was left in the preferences. Removing the lock file solved the issue.
The lock file is located at the following location:
~/Library/Preferences/Nikon/Nikon Scan 4 Prefs.lock
Sidenote: Weird that relatively old propriatary software like the Nikon Scan 4 software works fine, but that more recent (Nikon) software needs special updates to keep working under Snow Leopard. Was Nikon Scan 4 written by people who understand what they were doing (OS sub-version independent)? Or is this just luck?
Willem
Eventhough the Nikon Scan software works in Snow Leopard (OSX 10.6), Nikon abandonned the support for Nikon Scan 4 a while back. Alternatively you could use SilverFast from LaserSoft (commercial software).
Nikon, Nikon Scan 4, locked in Apple, Hardware, Operating Systems, Software
Reader Comments (4)
Just came across this blog post. Does snow leopard open nikon scan 4 with both the MA-20 and SA-21 film adapters for you? I can run the MA-20 fine, but when I attempt to open NS4 with the SA-21, a Nikon Scan 4 Preference Lock file appears in the system preferences.
I have to check at my dad's. He has the actual scanner. So I'll do a follow-up next week (if I don't forget).
I truly don't understand all the problems with using Nikon Scan 4/4.02 with Snow Leopard. I have a 17" MacBook Pro (Intel) and I upgraded my Leopard with Snow Leopard (I didn't do a clean install). I was lucky to get a great Super Coolscan 4000 ED off of Ebay for a great $350 price (incl. shipping). After it arrived, I then downloaded Nikon Scan 4 & 4.02 update after I read some of these horror tales of it not working with Snow Leopard.
I installed 4 and then 4.02 as per instructions during the install and it has worked perfectly every since. Because I work with both Windows and OS X on my various laptops, I only don't like the constant changes of interfaces -- particularly Apple's way of navigation (Home, End, PgUp, PgDn), but other than that, Scan works perfectly with my Scanner.
Penboy: So are you saying that both the MA-20 and SA-21 film adapters work for you? You have used both adapters to scan on the 4000 using Snow Leopard?