Ran a print last night and ever since then I keep getting Scanning or Centering but nothing happens.
Reset the unit,The wifi and unplugged and replugged the head back in…No luck.
There’s a list of tests to run to eliminate various causes for the support team:
Just tell them the results of the various tests.
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Just tried all those steps. Still Stuck.
Well, wait a couple of hours and try the first one again. (Sometimes it’s a Wifi problem with your service provider and the only thing that fixes it is time. Matter of fact, I’d do that a couple more times.)
If you’re still stuck after that, wait to hear from support what the next steps will be. They can check your logs and see if there is any other issue. That’s all we can pre-test for. 
Centering,Focusing and Scanning.
Keeps going in between those 3.
Okay…wait for support.
I have the same issue…for the last 10 DAYS! everyday I try all the suggestions, tips, tricks…NOTHING 
Did you contact support?
I did, but I haven’t heard back yet…how about you?
I contact them regularly, and they get back to me as soon as they can, each time. They don’t hand-hold while they work on the problem, they will contact you when a decision has been made, the problem has been fixed or if they have a test they need you to try. Sometimes that has been 7 -10 minutes, once it was about 3 weeks. It just depends on what the problem is. (And the 3-week issue was early in the development. It doesn’t usually take that long now.)
When did you contact them, and how? (It’s possible for emails to get misdirected or dropped, so if you haven’t heard from them in a week or so, send another one.)
BUT…continuing to post, chat, and email over and over again restarts the clock each time on getting the problem resolved, so use it sparingly.
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Thank you my GF friend!!
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There has been a lot more people reporting the “scanning forever” problem. I’ve had it too, over the last few days. I have a theory, but first, my workaround:
If it says “Scanning” and does nothing, then open the lid for five seconds. The status should change almost immediately to Lid Open. Then close the lid and the status changes back to Scanning. This should restart the Scanning process. If it doesn’t scan in 20 seconds, then repeat the open/5 seconds/close. Eventually it will scan.
I use the laser in the late afternoon. This problem is really bad/common if I use the laser before 2pm (that’s 4pm Eastern). It’s a little bad at 3pm (that’s 5pm Eastern), and almost never happens after 4pm (that’s 6pm Eastern).
My theory: There are a lot of GF users out there, and lots of them are in the “holiday gift making” season. The GF server is getting overwhelmed due to network congestion and that’s causing the big data transfer (the uploading of the scan picture and then downloading to your computer) to hang, timeout, or fail.
After about 5pm Eastern, a lot of GF users call it a day, lowering the bandwidth surge on the GF servers. An hour later, both Eastern (6pm) and Central (5pm) are closing down for the end of day. After that point, the scanning issue doesn’t happen as often.
GF rents servers from I believe, Google. Those servers aren’t in-house. Unless there is a contractual cap on use it’s unlikely that is the bottleneck. Sometime the Google cloud service goes down but it’s fairly rare.
Can’t speak for your situation but it was not unusual for my ISP to have throughput issues depending on the number of people connected and time of day.
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Hopefully I get a response soon my whole business relies on this GF running 
Could there be sunlight hitting the bed of the printer earlier in the day that isn’t there after 2pm? That can confuse the camera.
Not in my case. It’s in a basement with a hose going out a covered window well. It’s been working find this way since I first got it (years ago). This “scanning forever” is a new issue and doesn’t seem limited to me.
Agreed it’s a common issue. Seems like most often it’s related to WiFi, or maybe a “black cable” issue. In my case it happened because of the material I was using (shiny black). It’s common because of how many things can cause it. 
If it’s not sunlight, then I wonder if there’s a device on the same WiFi channel that’s mostly in use earlier in the day?
3 days since my first email about this issue. This is absolutely ridiculous. Then i finally got someone in chat yesterday and they told me That i most likely needed the black cable replaced but they had to get a “senior associate” and they “will need to arrange for the replacement cable”
I’m able to chat with support but you have to get a defective part replacement approved? Approval for a freaking cable? Unbelievable
$2,500-$6,000 units and its thus had to get a simple cable replaced? Absolutely ridiculous!
So extremely frustrating
I’m so sorry to hear about the trouble with your Glowforge. We will continue to work on this through email, so I’m going to close this thread.