canon scanner suddenly stopped working
 

hi

i am having a canon lide 50 scanner.

first, it was working perfectly.

now, the lmde suddenly thinks it scanner is twice its size. it tries to scan the whole, and then forces the scanner to do more, resulting in the mechanics hanging.

i tried reinstalling lmde, tried it to with ubuntu, same problem. in windows, it only works with the software delivered with the scanner, before it was pug&play.

how can i fix this?

Its not lmde, it will be the scanner or the driver backend.

CanoScan LiDE 50 uses the sane-genesys backend ... usually come with the distro version of sane. You'll need to check that the scanner is being detected correctly. However, it looks a lot like the scanner itself is breaking.

scanner is detected correctly. "Canon LiDE 35/40/50"

the break was pretty suddenly ( after i canceled a color-scan midway ), and in windows it is still working ( with the software from the cd ).

it is still acting weird on linux, suddenly stopping, hanging, trying to exceed physical limits, ect..

Perhaps check...

Have you tried booting Mint without the scanner, shutting down, then connecting the scanner and booting again?

What do you mean by re-installing the scanner, downloading the sane packages again? You might be better off using google to troubleshoot genesys.

http://www.sane-project.org/man/sane-genesys.5.html

by re-installing, i mean the OS, not the scanner.

tried plugging in after boot, he fails to detect the scanner. now every time.

i think the symptoms get worser, now there is no detection at all. just got to have a new scanner, it is pointless trying to get this working.

... but it worked without the CD drivers before - you said it was "plug and play". That suggests there is something different with the scanner.

OTOH: as thorkelljarl suggests, troubleshoot the driver or reset.

[edit]
Hmmm... the man page suggests recalibrating.

yeah.. i was also thinking about recalibrating, i wish i would now how.

whats the command for recalibrating?

man scanimage (learn about the options)

Lets see ...

scanimage -L (to tell you what the scanner is called, something like "canon:/dev/sg0")

scanimage --calibrate --device-name [device]

You'll have to do this with the calibration image in place.
Some scanners have self-calibration: its a button on the box. Read the documentation that came with the scanner.

scanners are all different, so each backend will have different capabilities. Find out the capabilities of your backend with:

scanimage --help --device-name [device]

does not work, here the terminal output:
can't find any calibrate option in the man page.

It's in the genesys man page - did you try:

scanimage --help --device-name genesys:libusb:002:003

have you checked your scanner documentation about how to calibrate it?
do you have the calibration sheet?

... scanimage just detected the scanner though.
... are the symptoms worse in windows too?

wel.. simple-scan (GUI interface) says it is not detected.

also got 2 windows on this machine. 1 virtual in vmware player windows xp. and a dual-boot with windows 7.

windows 7 can scan with it. but i get an error from the software when using the virtual windows. it seems like the whole communication to linux is screwed. ( because the signal goes from scanner to linux to virtual windows )

and in linux the same symptoms are back again. he thinks the "Y" of the scanner is twice as long.

scanimage -L gives now "genesys:libusb:003:003" instead of "genesys:libusb:002:003"

Have you been able to scan from gnu/linux with this setup before?
Have you tried the scanner with a different computer?
Have you followed the scanner documentation to calibrate the scanner?

what does

sane-find-scanner

do?

Have you tried running simple-scan as root?

Have a read through:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=153933

sry for the absence, i was busy doing some school-exams.

anyhow, the scanner still has the same behavour. it did do its job before with ubunu and other linux-distrobutions. it is still functional enough in windows.

i tested it with a pclinuxos netbook and the behavour is the same.

i have read that forum-post, but is is out-dated, and my problem is not that the scanner does nothing. the scanner does something, but not the right thing. look at my first post at the beginning of this thread.

of course, it is a lot of hassle to do a reboot everytime i need to scan, i am at los what to do.

maybe worth to mention: if i select color-scan(300dpi), the scanner tries to scan beyond it's limits( mentioned in the first post ), and if i select "text-scan" ( aka, black and white @ 150dpi ) he already starts hanging at the very beginning of scanning.

simple-scan still thinks the scan is succesfull. but i don't get an usable image.

The link I supplied deals with troubleshooting sane. The process is the same even though the exact symptoms are different.

You have answered some of the questions - sort of:

Q. Have you been able to scan from gnu/linux with this setup before?
... great - so it probably is not a sane problem.

Q. Have you tried the scanner with a different computer?
... great so it probably isn't an interface problem - try a different cable.

VMs sometimes have trouble connecting with external devices, if the netbook does not use such a weird setup, then

Q. Have you tried running simple-scan as root?
... does not quite answer the question - one of the things that can mess up is a change in permissions.

What do you mean by "useable image"? You do get some image?

You have been supplying conflicting information about what the scanner does - it fails in windows, it works in windows but only with the supplied drivers, it is "functional enough" in windows ... I can't do anything with this information!

Remaining to be answered:

Have you followed the scanner documentation to calibrate the scanner?

What does

sane-find-scanner

do?


... at the back of my mind is that your win7 will be newer than the rest. Can you recall if you started having this problem after you first (successfully?) tried to scan under win7? (Sometimes windows can leave a device in a state that makes it unusable in other OSs.)

sry for the conflicting information. i did not realise it was that confusing.

i will answer the questions that where unclear. i wasn't sure about what the problem could be, maybe that's why is subconsciously gave unclear answers.

an update: i have done an OS-hop to pclinuxos kde version. the default in pclinuxxos is xsane, so i am using that now.
the mechanics keep hanging while scanning, when i run xsane is root, it is the same. in windows, it still is able to scan with the software. without the software, it won't work.

the image i get is, i image with the lines the scan-device was on. the scan-sensor is on the same place, but the computer thinks it is moving. resulting in an image with horizontal lines. ( how do i upload pictures here? )

i don't scan in linux anymore because i am afraid the forcing wil break the scanner even more.

the problems started after i canceled an color-scan(from simple-scan), but i indeed suspect windows had been messing with the scanner. i am not sure, it is to long ago to remember.

sry for being so unclear, and thx for making me realize it.

i don't have any scanner documentation, i can look it up, but i suspect is is "windows only".

Apart from not being paper-fed, your symptoms indicate calibration problems.
Calibrate under windows is fine - it is supposed to restore the scanner to factory conditions.
Overall, I think I need to be sitting in front of the scanner to help you properly.

Summary of scanner data:

found USB scanner (vendor=0x04a9 [Canon], product=0x2213 [CanoScan], chip=GL842) at libusb:002:011

device `genesys:libusb:002:003' is a Canon LiDE 35/40/50 flatbed scanner

GL842 is known to be troublesome - but sane lists the LiDE 30/40/50 as having "good" support.
http://www.sane-project.org/unsuppor...n-lide-50.html

I see lots of people with scanning issues with this scanner - but the prevailing fix is to buy a new scanner. If the scanner is in warranty, take it back. You could pay someone to look at it, but the lide 50 is a cheap thing so you are still better off with a new one. That's the main problem - the scanner is so cheap that people just replace it when something goes wron - as a result, nothing gets fixed or properly investigated.

I did, however, find a cute trick ... it involves selecting a slightly smaller area for the scan, zooming to that, then hitting scan.
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/archiv.../t-227504.html

@Simon Bridge

thx for the advice, i ques i will just use virtualbox for now then. this treath can be closed now.