Patent ID: 7773888

Claim:
A maintenance system comprising: a plurality of image forming apparatuses each of which forms an image on a sheet; a management apparatus connected to each of the image forming apparatuses via a communication line; a first transmission unit arranged in each of the image forming apparatuses, configured to transmit data of a trouble in the respective image forming apparatus together with supplementary information including maintenance information; a first reception unit arranged in the management apparatus, configured to receive the data of the trouble and the supplementary information transmitted by one or more of said first transmission units; a storage unit arranged in the management apparatus, configured to store the data of the trouble and the supplementary information received by said first reception unit; a second transmission unit arranged in the management apparatus, configured to transmit the data of the trouble and the supplementary information stored in said storage unit, when a transmission request is received; a second reception unit arranged in each of the image forming apparatuses, configured to receive the data of the trouble and the supplementary information transmitted by said second transmission unit when the respective image forming apparatus outputs an abnormal image; and a display unit arranged in each of the image forming apparatuses, configured to display the data of the trouble and the supplementary information received by said second reception unit, wherein said supplementary information transmitted by said second transmission unit, received by said second reception unit and displayed by said display unit, contains a method of repairing the respective image forming apparatus to correct the abnormal image output by the respective image forming apparatus, wherein the maintenance system further comprises an image reading unit configured to read images, wherein the data of the trouble contains trouble image data generated based on image data formed by said image reading unit by reading the abnormal image on a sheet output from one of the image forming apparatus, and wherein a difference between the image data formed by said image reading unit by reading the abnormal image on the sheet output from the respective image forming apparatus and image data formed by said image reading unit by reading a plain sheet identical in type to the sheet output from the respective image forming apparatus is calculated as final data of the trouble image data, and said first transmission unit transmits the final data together with the supplementary information including the maintenance information.