Scan to email pdf corruption

[Taminol]

Hi guys,

I wasn't sure whether to post this here or on the connectivity forum. But, on balance, I think here...

Issue: Occasional corruption of multi-page (between 50 - 150 pages) scan to email as a .pdf.
You could scan a 100 page document and get the problem, re-scan it and maybe get the problem for a 2nd time or maybe it will be fine on the 2nd time of scanning. Proper intermittent.
It doesn't appear to be a size issue, most times it's a document with at least 50 pages which displays the issue though.

The message on the PC screen whilst scrolling through the document is "not enough data to make an image (14)" when viewing via Adobe Reader. Also, there are pages missing, anywhere between 10 to 40 consecutive pages.
Sometimes the document won't open at all, you just get a message about the file being damaged or corrupted and that's it.

I have tried using a different .pdf Reader and have the same issues as above, missing pages.

I've never been able to recreate the problem on demand or ever, only seen the end result of the corrupted pdf.

The C454e F/W is up to date, Adobe reader is current version. Client using MS Office suite (Outlook destination for scan to email) hosted online by their I.T. provider.

I had a look online and found all sorts of Adobe related problems with corrupt document. Could it be this?
Further research revealed what happens to the pdf once it leaves the Bizhub.
This is my understanding of what happens.....the pdf gets created inside the C454e, the pdf exits the machine thru the network cable and makes its way along the path the SMTP address is pointing to. When it reaches a certain point on its journey the pdf may get encoded, if might not, this is down to the provider of that service. If the pdf does get encoded, it also gets decoded when it reaches its destination. I think Outlook does a bit of this. Some sites indicate that this could cause corruption of pdf documents. Other sites suggest that when a pdf comes back in to the building (offsite hosted Exchange) it will be 'sniffed' by a router. This sniffing could cause packet loss which in turn could cause the pdf to become corrupt.
Then there's the antivirus software which will interrogate the email attachment, this also has been known to corrupt pdfs
I did a fair bit of reading, some of which sunk in, some didn't. In summary, I'm surprised with everything going on, anything works at all!

I have never heard of this problem being caused by a KM device. But this is a new installation and the perception is it's the KM which is creating a corrupt pdf in the first place. Unfortunately I can't ever recreate the fault. Tried Compact pdf too, but never goes wrong with any consistancy. This is causing some real problems for the client and they are kind of stuck in the middle of the Bizhub and the IT provider.

We have emailed their IT and the initial response is that the Bizhub is the cause of the corrupt pdfs.

Trying different compression settings has done nothing, it never goes wrong when we are onsite. Even if it did, we still wouldn't be able to prove anything conclusively.

Anyone come across this before of have any idea?

Thanks

Taminol

[Synthohol]

Re: Scan to email pdf corruption

My suggestion is to scan to SMB local computer or scan to a flash drive then view it on the PC and see if it is indeed corrupted by the copier.
If the scans are perfect try another email account like gmail.
Thats what I would try first to help trace the problem.

[Taminol]

Re: Scan to email pdf corruption

.... or scan to a flash drive then view it on the PC.

We tried a flash drive, scanned approx 60 x 60page pdfs and they were all fine.
The client had scanned at least 30 x 50 page documents via scan to email on the same day and also had no issues.
It's so intermittent, it could do it twice in a row and then behave for the next 100 scans.

The SMB idea would work as a test. But we would potentially need to leave it like this for a whole day, probably all week to prove conclusively. The scan to email is integrated into the client workflow, so it would be a massive impact on them and they do not wish to change their workflow in anyway.

This is a really tricky one and I'm hoping someone's gona say, "yeah, had it before do x y & z or had it before it's......"
Thanks for your reply :-)

[docdot69]

Re: Scan to email pdf corruption

I had an issue like this with bizhub 223, but in my case, the network/server settings didn't allowed to send email with attached file.
SMB was working fine, but when i tried to scan via email, it didn't. So i cloned the MAC adress of the bizhub to my computer and tried to send email with attached pdf file - the mail was sended to another computer via email but when i opened the email, the attached file was not in it, and on my copmuter prompt was showed that the attached file was blocked by network.

So my suggestion is to check the server/network configuration. Maybe it has restrictions saying that attached file can not be larger than, or can not have more pages than. Anything can happen with network configuration.

I had to prove to network admin, that it is no bizhub problem, it's a problem with network configuration.

[Synthohol]

Re: Scan to email pdf corruption

what about using compact pdf?

[allan]

Re: Scan to email pdf corruption

Use Synthohol's suggestion to use gmail that should not really mess with the work flow and that would eliminate the provider.

Handling big docs like that is not ideal. SMB, webdav or FTP is the way to go.