The scanner worked for years, nobody touched it, and now it says Send failed or Authentication error, or the scans simply never arrive. This is frustrating because nothing appears to have changed at your end, and usually nothing has. The change happened somewhere else.

There are a handful of safe checks worth doing. Beyond those, please log it with us rather than working through the machine's settings menus, and the reason for that is at the bottom of this article.

Try this first

1. Note the exact error. Photograph the message on the printer screen. Words like Authentication, Login failed, SMTP or Server not found tell us most of what we need. Also check whether the printer has an error log or job history under a Status or Reports menu that shows recent failures.
2. Work out how widespread it is. Try scanning to your own email address and to a colleague's. Try to a folder as well as to email if the machine does both. If scanning to a folder works and email does not, the printer and network are fine and the problem is the mail side.
3. Check the printer can still be reached. Try printing something to the same machine. If printing works, the printer is on the network and reachable, and the fault is specific to scanning.
4. Check where scans go if they are not bouncing. If the printer says the job sent successfully but nothing arrives, look in the junk or quarantine folder of the receiving mailbox. Scanned PDFs sent from a device are a common thing for mail filtering to hold back, particularly if the printer sends from an address that does not match your domain.
5. Power-cycle the machine. Switch it off, unplug it from the wall for thirty seconds, plug it back in and let it come fully back up. This clears a stuck connection and occasionally is all it needs.

Why scan to email breaks

Almost every time, this is an authentication change at the mail provider rather than a fault in the printer. Microsoft 365 and Google both keep tightening how devices are allowed to sign in and send mail. Older sign-in methods that printers relied on for years get switched off, sometimes on a published date and sometimes as part of a security change made to your tenancy.

When that happens, the printer keeps trying the only method it knows, the mail provider refuses it, and you get an authentication error on a machine nobody has touched. The printer is not broken and neither is your account. It needs to be reconnected using a method the provider still accepts, and there is usually more than one way to do it. Which one is right depends on how your email is set up and what your security settings allow.

Why scan to folder breaks

Scan to folder relies on the printer signing in to a shared folder on a computer, a server or a network drive using an account and password stored inside the machine. It breaks when:

• Someone changes the password on the account the printer was using, often without knowing the printer used it.
• The account belonged to a staff member who has left and been disabled.
• The folder moved, was renamed, or the computer that hosted it was replaced.
• Files were migrated to SharePoint or OneDrive, which the printer cannot reach the way it reached a folder on the network.

Please log it rather than reconfiguring it

This is not gatekeeping. Scanner setup screens hold stored credentials, mail server settings and address books, and it is very easy to lose the working configuration while trying to repair it, which turns a twenty-minute job into a much longer one. Some of the fixes also need a change on the Microsoft 365 or Google side that you cannot make from the printer at all.

Log a ticket with the make and model, the exact error, who it affects, and whether it is email, folder or both. If you know of a recent password change or a staff member who left, tell us. That detail often points straight at the cause.

Once we have it working, we will note how it is configured so the next time a provider changes the rules it is a quick fix rather than a rediscovery.

Still stuck?

Log a ticket at portal.yougrowit.com.au or email support@yougrowit.com.au. If it is stopping you working right now, call 03 9028 4358.

Support hours are Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 5:30pm Melbourne time, excluding Victorian public holidays.