Scanning random crashes

[smellycabbages]

Hi all, first post here so apologies..

I have been using XN View to scan images using a plustek optibook 3600, which uses a program called 'Optictwain' as the scanner interface. I'm doing multiple scans but not using batch scanning as I need to rotate and name each image individually as I scan. The bug appears seemingly at random as XN-View tries to call the Optictwain program, just as the 'preparing the scanner info/calibration' dialogue comes up XN-View quits with the following error :

AppName: xnview.exe AppVer: 1.98.0.0 ModName: commonfunc.dll
ModVer: 1.0.0.1 Offset: 00006685

I initially put it down to the laptop or some software combination I was using, but after a laptop change the bug still seems to be there. I'm using a Compaq Presario V4000 latop with Windows XP and 1gb of ram. This has happened at least with all the recent releases I've used (I'm currently on latest). I've tried the usual fixes mentioned on this section, and also searched here but failed to find anything similar.

The basic process I'm following is..

Click on scan button on XN-View to bring up scan dialogue, wait for an auto preview then crop and scan image (after scanning the scanner software does some automated processes I've set up, like lighten and increase contrast). When the image has been sent to XN-View I rotate the image so it's straight then save the file to a specific folder. I then close the window and scan another image. The error occurs when the scanner initialising box comes up, and appears random, but slightly too frequent to be comfortable, sometimes it will crash on the second or third attempt to scan, sometimes the 10th or so, but it will always crash within a short space of time.. It rarely crashes on the first attempt. Usually the crash is (or at least seems to me) associated with a longer than usual wait for the scanner dialogue to arrive.

I'm sure this won't affect a lot of people as it is probably something to do with the way XN-View is interacting with this particular scan software (which admittedly is slightly unusual as the scanner is a book one), but thought I might flag it up in case it has been.

[xnview]

Not easy to find such bug
Do you have another software to try twain scan?

[smellycabbages]

Seems to work ok with Irfanview and Microsoft's Image viewer thing (plus a couple of OCR packages). I kind of wondered whether it might be something to do with the way XN- View shuts down the scanner software, as it doesn't shut down the window until it needs to do a new scan, whereupon it shuts the window and then re-opens it. I suspect it may partially be a problem with the scanner software itself though as well as it appears a bit shoddily written, but it would be nice if anything if XN-View instead of crashing would just do slightly more friendly exception handling rather than crash, as it could get a bit devastating if you have other images open you're working on. Easier said than done though I'm sure Good program other than that though, it is one of my essential programs!

[xnview]

Try to add in the xnview.ini, in [scan] section
newMethod=0
or
newMethod=1

[smellycabbages]

Okay will give that a go and report back.

[smellycabbages]

Looking through my ini file, it doesn't seem to have a [scan] section. Should I create one or is something missing, bearing in mind I renamed the original ini file (which also has no [scan] section btw) so this should be a fresh one. If you like I can send you through the ini file?

[xnview]

If no scan section, please add one

[smellycabbages]

Apologies for delay in getting back on this. I've added the section and will experiment with the two settings.

[smellycabbages]

Okay after a brief experiment (up to the point I'd had several crashes to make sure), it seems neither value seems to improve things. The workaround it seems is, once you've opened the scan dialogue once successfully, don't call it again from XN-View (which shuts it down and then re-opens it), instead switch windows back to the scanner dialogue and preview/scan from there again. This seems to work fine with no crashes at all.