MG7120 The scanner is not available while in use by another application or user

[Walter2019]

i have a Canon MG7120 with scanner. Its running on an IMAC OS High Sierra, Version 10.13.6.

As long as i own it i never had problems to print or scan.

Now after a software update of my IMAC i cannot scan anymore. The error is: The scanner is not available while in use by another application or user.

I went to Canon website and updated the new driver for the printer and scanner. The printer is working but the scanner still shows the same error.

I restarted numerous times without any success.

Any idea what that might be and how to fix it?

[ArthurJ]

HI Walter2019,

Troubleshooting with our support group will be needed to narrow down the cause of your issues. Please contact our support group at 1-800-OK-CANON (1-800-652-2666), Monday - Friday, 8:00 AM - 8:00 PM EST(excluding holidays).

We look forward to hearing from you.

[Walter2019]

After i called the support group they performed some trouble shooting. Since the network for fine we deleted the MG7120 from system Preference/Printers and Scanners and re-added it. Check was performed and everything worked.

No idea what the reason was but now it worked.

thanks for your help

[SKOV]

Dear Canon multi function inkjet printers, I am using a MG7750 printer/scanner on MacOS and have experienced a similar malfunction from the scanner with an error report from the Canon Quick Menu Scan function that is calling the Canon IJ Scan Utility2 module making the scanning impossible through the application.

The reported error was: The scanner is not available while in use by another user or application.

This message is unfortunately not very helping as it does not point to the resource or file locked by that user and application that could have been deleted to help solving the issue.

The cause of the problem resulted from a lack of computer memory (my Hard Disk was almost full), and I had got several warnings from the scanner utility from Canon that the system could become unstable...

So, after some scans performed succesfully under this condition, the utility got finally stuck returning the above error message.

I tried several solutions proposed on this forum (replacement of applications, drivers and utilities from Canon support site, reboot of computer, switch off/on of the printer/scanner) but none of these have solved the problem.

Nevertheless, after some trials, I succeeded to perform a scan by directly bypassing the Canon Quick Menu. For this, I just opened the control panel of the printer/scanner from the System Preferences menu and launched a scan.

But I finally found the solution to restore the function of scanner from the Canon Quick Menu application.

And here it is:

1. Don't mess up reinstalling everything!
2. Disconnect the printer from the power plug for a long period of time (I did it during a complete night and the problem disappeared like by magic).

So, I believe the problem was with some table of resources locked in the printer microcontroller memory that retains its values even when the printer is switched off but not disconnected from the power. It is only when, no power is provided to the printer/scanner for a time long enough that the memory seems to be cleared. My guess: it is likekly that all capacitors have to fully discharge to obtian memory cleared.

Enjoy.

And tell me if this solution worked for you!!

[jamesdickens]

It worked! Thanks.