Ubuntu – How to make the scanner function of the Brother DCP-315CN work

11.10brotherscanning

I have a networked Brother DCP-315CN printer/scanner that I've been using with Ubuntu since version 7.10. Each new version has required its own tricks but so far, I've always been able to make the machine work – until now with v11.10.

Printing is no problem and has just become easier with the years, not even requiring drivers from the Brother web pages but the scanning function now leaves me without a clue as to what to do. I've downloaded and installed brscan2 (which hasn't been updated by Brother since 2009) and other related drives just as with earlier Ubuntu versions. I have also applied the tip about copying a number of files from /usr/lib64 to /usr/lib but to no use.

brsaneconfig 2 -q tells me that I've correctly configured and registered the scanner, and dpkg -l tells me that the drivers are installed but still, no scanner application detects it.

scanimage -L, scanimage -T, sane-find-scanner, and brsaneconfig2 -d all state that there is no scanner device connected, which I find very strange since the two computers in the house still running v11.04 sees the scanner, and I can anyway print on the device even from Oneiric.

Any piece of advice that can put me on a forward-moving track would be very much appreciated.

Update: I've been playing around with VirtualBox on two different computers, testing both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Ubuntu. So far, the conclusion is that this problem is specific to the 64-bit version of 11.10. 32-bit or earlier versions of Ubuntu work fine with the scanner. As to the reason for the problem, I'm no wiser, however.

Update: More playing with VirtualBox. scanning works with 64-bit Fedora 16 (recent kernel) and Debian 6 (old kernel), but so far not with Ubuntu-based Mint 12. So the problem seems to be kind of ubuntuish up to now. Going to try OPENSuse as well.

Best Answer

Thank for the info. I think the following lines does the job (for the brscan2 package) - Ubuntu 12.04 amd64, Networking DCP-560CN:

sudo cp /usr/lib64/libbrscandec2* /usr/lib

sudo cp /usr/lib64/libbrcolm2* /usr/lib 

sudo cp /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother2* /usr/lib/sane

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Invalid argument – Brother scanner not working after upgrade (brscan2 driver)

After I update to 13.10 I got the same error when scanning. There are two problems here.

The error Invalid argument is not a argument problem, but is a write access problem.
The other problem is that the bus and dev number are wrong from the scanimage error.

How to find and fix the problem?

Install the brscan4 drivers from the brother website

sudo dpkg -i brscan4-0.4.2-1.amd64.deb

Check to see if it works

sudo brsaneconfig4 -d

Test to see if the scanner is installed (scanner need to be powered on). And run as a user NOT root

$ scanimage -L
device `brother4:bus5;dev1' is a Brother ADS-2000 USB scanner
$ scanimage --test
scanimage: open of device brother4:bus5;dev1 failed:
Invalid argument

$ scanimage
scanimage: open of device brother4:bus5;dev1 failed:
Invalid argument

You can use the following script to update the permissions for the scanner.

lsusb | grep -i brother | sed 's/://' | awk '{printf "/dev/bus/usb/%s/%s", $2,$4}' | xargs -i -t sudo chmod 666 "{}"

lsusb lists usb devices

grep -i brother will find the brother device (assumption I made is you have only one brother device connected to the USBs at a time)

sed 's/://' | awk '{printf "/dev/bus/usb/%s/%s", $2,$4}' will find the bus & device numbers

xargs -i -t sudo chmod 666 "{}" will add write permission to scanner

Here is more detailed information on why we did what we did above

To find out where the brother scanner is on the bus use lsusb. This is one of the problems in the scanimage. The bus is 003 and the device is 002 and not bus 5, dev 1 as per scanimage

$ lsusb
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 04f9:60a0 Brother Industries, Ltd**  
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
...

To fix the problem, you will need to use the path based on the location of the brother scanner in the lsusb command. In my case it was bus 003 and device 002. Note that if you unplug the USB cable to the scanner and plug it back in the device, you will get a new number and/or bus. (The number return back to 2 when you reboot the PC)

Examples:

sudo cd /dev/bus/usb/003
sudo chmod 666 002

or just:

sudo chmod 666 /dev/bus/usb/003/002

Scanimage need to fix the message when it can not access the scanner to have the right bus and dev number and also tell the user that the problem is a write access problem.

Brother needs to update the driver code so that global user can write to the scanner i.e. chmod 666 to the scanner driver location

Ubuntu – Brother DCP-7055W

Wireless printing

Download the LPR and cupswrapper driver from: http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/bsc/public_s/id/linux/en/download_prn.html#DCP-7055W

Install them:

sudo dpkg -i dcp7055wlpr-*.deb
sudo dpkg -i dcp7055wcupswrapper-*.deb

New printer should be added and ready for use now.

Wireless scanning

Download brscan4 and scan-key-tool from: http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/bsc/public_s/id/linux/en/download_scn.html#brscan4

Install them:

sudo dpkg -i brscan4-*.deb
sudo dpkg -i brscan-skey-*.deb

Voila, wireless scanning using simple-scan works!

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Invalid argument – Brother scanner not working after upgrade (brscan2 driver)

Ubuntu – Brother DCP-7055W

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