A friend of ours needed some help getting her ASUS laptop to scan using a Samsung SCX-4216 MFC laser printer/scanner/copier/fax.

I tried the scanner software, and it would open up another window with the error “Enter a number between 0 and -312601.75

Now thats a strange number.

the error appears a few times. So I have to click “Ok” a few times until it goes away, and I can see the scanner parameters.

The “width” parameter is interesting: it’s set to -312601.75

I try to change it to a reasonable number (I also tried a few unreasonable numbers) but to no avail.

A search of the web shows no reasonable matches for the error number 🙁

I uninstall and reinstall the whole Samsung printer suite (including the smarthru scanner software), but the error reappears.

I uninstall again, and I scan through the registry, removing any stray samsung entries left behind by the uninstall program.

Reboot, then reinstall the software: and the error reappears!

I get onto the Samsung website, download the latest drivers and software, install them, and the error is still there.

I’m told the printer worked fine on another laptop…

Is it a corruption of the windows registry?

A yet to be discovered bug with the Samsung software?

The twain software that throws the error seems to have a windows title indicating it is trying to scan from a DC-112X device.

I figure its the internal identifier for the Samsung scanner.

A web search shows very few hits for DC-112X.

But with a bit of digging, I find its either a webcam of a phonecam…

I poke around in the Samsung scanner software, and find a spot where I get a list of installed twain devices… the DC-112X is the default device, and there are 2 Samsung scanner devices mentioned as well…

This is like printers… only 1 device can be the default twain device at any one time.

At this point, I can set the default device.

So I pick one of the Samsung scanners, start the twain scanner software, and now I don’t get any error message. Hooray!

I’ve since found out that the DC-112X is one of those webcams built into many laptops nowadays.

Having it appears as a twain device is strange, but having it not “scan” properly is even stranger.