My Nikon scanner has difficulties using a certain film adapter

When using a certain film adapter, "Error from Nikon" appears in the scanner status window. Other adapters, especially the manual adapter (MA-20/21), work correctly.

Some adapters require the latest firmware to be installed. Otherwise it will not work correctly. This especially applies to the Nikon LS-40 and LS-4000.

You can download the latest firmware updater here:

For the COOLSCAN LS 40 / IV ED(Windows)
For the COOLSCAN LS 40 / IV ED (Mac OSX)

For the COOLSCAN LS 4000 (Windows)
For the COOLSCAN LS 4000 (Mac OSX)

The Nikon LS50 / V ED and LS 5000 already have the latest firmware installed and do not need to be updated.

Please note that the Firmware update requires Nikon Scan 3.0 so it generally is necessary to do this on an older system. The Firmware update only requires the drivers. So it can be done even if Nikon Scan 3 itself will not run. It generally is easier to do this on a Windows system. On a Mac you require an OS X version before 10.6.

Nikon Scan 3 (Windows)

Nikon Scan 3 (Mac)

The LS 8000 generally does not show such issues. The firmware link are listed for completeness.

For the COOLSCAN LS8000 (Windows)
For the COOLSCAN LS8000 (Mac OSX)