Determining maintenance conditions in a document scanner

A mail processing system, comprising:

• a platen having an aperture;
• and
• an imager configured to scan a document as the document is transported past the aperture;
• wherein the mail processing system is configured to
• scan the document to produce a document image;
• analyze the document image, wherein analyzing the document image includes one or more of determining if there is a dark obstruction in the document image and determining if there is a bright obstruction in the document image;
• based on the analysis, determine that there is a condition of the mail processing system that requires maintenance and that produced the dark obstruction or the bright obstruction;
• and
• notify at least one user of the condition of the mail processing system that requires maintenance and stop scanning additional documents so that the user can correct the condition of the mail processing system that requires maintenance.

A non-transitory computer readable medium having program instructions tangibly stored thereon executable by a processor to perform a method comprising:

• scanning a document using a document scanner to produce a document image;
• analyzing the document image, wherein analyzing the document image includes one or more of determining if there is a dark obstruction in the document image and determining if there is a bright obstruction in the document image
• determining, based on the analysis of the document image that there is a condition of the document scanner that requires maintenance and that produced the dark obstruction or the bright obstruction;
• and
• notifying a user of the condition of the document scanner that requires maintenance and stopping scanning additional documents so that the user can correct the condition of the document scanner that requires maintenance.