Trouble installing Epson LiDE 30 scanner
 

All,

Greetings! I'm new to linux, having installed Mandrake 10 last weekend. This weekend I've been trying to get my scanner to work.

The scanner is an Epson LiDE 30 scanner, which according to other posts here should work "out of the box." Unfortunately, that hasn't been my experience -- instead the Mandrake Control Center cannot tells me that no scanners are connected. I've tried lots of things to troubleshoot this, so here goes.

Running "sane-find-scanner -v" as root gives me a whole bunch of:

checking /dev/usbscanner1... failed to open (Invalid argument)
checking /dev/usbscanner2... failed to open (Invalid argument)
.
.
.
checking /dev/usbscanner14... failed to open (Invalid argument)
checking /dev/usbscanner15... failed to open (Invalid argument)

Running lsmod tells me that I have 3 USB modules:

ehci-hcd 24196 0
ohci-hcd 18692 0
usbcore 99132 5 hid,ehci-hcd,ohci-hcd

And my /proc/bus/usb/devices file indicates 3 devices: an EHCI Host Controller and two OHCI Host controllers. As far as I can tell, the USB ports work fine -- I even tried a USB mouse and it worked without problems.

Mandrake 10 runs on a 2.6.3 kernel (at least this one is), which from what I've read does not require a "scanner kernal module" to be installed.

I tried booting up a Knoppix Live CD, and it recognized the scanner, so I think the scanner is functioning properly. Unfortunately, the knoppix CD doesn't have sane, so I couldn't do much.

I googled for information, but pretty much everything out there assumes that the scanner is detected by sane-find-scanner and goes on from there.

Other relevant(?) info:
libsane1-1.0.13-6mdk
sane-backends-1.0.13-6mdk
saned-1.0.13-6mdk
libusb0.1_4-0.1.7-1mdk
libusb0.1_4-devel-0.1.7-1mdk

What else should I try? What am I missing here?

Thanks!
Mike

When you did lsmod, did you see a module called "scanner"? It should be there along with usbcore and ehci/ohci. If not, try loading it with "modprobe scanner". Then detect the scanner again

No, there's no module named 'scanner'. And when I try to do "modprobe scanner" I get:

FATAL: Module scanner not found.

Should I just re-install?

Ok, some more info
 

I used dmesg to view the startup messages, and pruned out the ones that didn't seem relevant. Here's the result:

drivers/usb/core/usb.c: registered new driver usbfs
drivers/usb/core/usb.c: registered new driver hub
ohci_hcd: 2004 Feb 02 USB 1.1 'Open' Host Controller (OHCI) Driver (PCI)
ohci_hcd: block sizes: ed 64 td 64
ohci_hcd 0000:00:02.0: OHCI Host Controller
ohci_hcd 0000:00:02.0: irq 11, pci mem e1805000
ohci_hcd 0000:00:02.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 1-0:1.0: 3 ports detected
ohci_hcd 0000:00:02.1: OHCI Host Controller
ohci_hcd 0000:00:02.1: irq 5, pci mem e180c000
ohci_hcd 0000:00:02.1: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 2-0:1.0: 3 ports detected
ehci_hcd 0000:00:02.2: EHCI Host Controller
ehci_hcd 0000:00:02.2: irq 10, pci mem e1834000
ehci_hcd 0000:00:02.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3
ehci_hcd 0000:00:02.2: USB 2.0 enabled, EHCI 1.00, driver 2003-Dec-29
hub 3-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 3-0:1.0: 6 ports detected
hub 3-0:1.0: Cannot enable port 1. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
hub 3-0:1.0: over-current change on port 1
drivers/usb/core/usb.c: registered new driver hiddev
drivers/usb/core/usb.c: registered new driver hid
drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: v2.0:USB HID core driver
hub 3-0:1.0: Cannot enable port 2. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
hub 3-0:1.0: over-current change on port 2
hub 3-0:1.0: Cannot enable port 3. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
hub 3-0:1.0: over-current change on port 3
hub 3-0:1.0: Cannot enable port 4. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
hub 3-0:1.0: over-current change on port 4
hub 3-0:1.0: Cannot enable port 5. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
hub 3-0:1.0: over-current change on port 5
hub 3-0:1.0: Cannot enable port 6. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
hub 3-0:1.0: over-current change on port 6

For some reason, it cannot enable my USB ports, claiming an "over-current" change and offers the USB cable as a cause. However, it's worth pointing out that I have NOTHING attached to my USB bus at the moment. (I disconnected the scanner before booting to check).

Success!
 

I noticed that it was only hub 3 that was generating the "over current" errors, which made me think it was related to a specific USB port -- in this case I suspected the USB ports on the front of the box because those were the ones I connected by hand when I built the PC.

I unplugged those wires from the motherboard, rebooted, and viola! The sane-find-scanner function locates the scanner, and everything seems happy. Now I just need to figure out how to optimize the configuration -- scanning is slower than it was with windows. But at least now it works!

Thanks for your help!
Mike