I am running ubuntu 8..10 and I have had no luck in getting my Epson perfection 3490 photo scanner to work. I belong to the scanner group and my scanner is recognized, but I get this message when I click on Xsane; Failed to open device snapscan:libusb:008:002':invalid argument

What I have done so far after googling and finding some info:

First I made sure that libsane-extras is installed.

Next I made sure that all users who are allowed to use the scanner belong to the "scanner" group.

Got the firmware, which is in a cab archive on the CD that came with the scanner; extracted files to find Esfw52.bin; copied file to /usr/local/lib/firmware

Checked snapscan.conf and scanner was listed Changed firmware line in snapscan.conf to firmware /usr/local/lib/firmware/Esfw52.bin

Added file 10-udev.rules containing these lines;
#scanner devices
scanner:root:scanner:066
usb/scanner*:root:scanner:0660
to /etc/udev/rules.d

Still got the invalid argument message.

I found that ubuntu 8.10 is missing the epkowa file, so I followed the directions (cut and paste) and created one in/etc/sane.d.
I then followed these directions:
I edited /etc/sane.d/dll.conf: commented out the line "epson" and added a line "epkowa".

edited /etc/sane.d/epkowa.conf and comment out the "scsi" line; the only uncommented line"usb".

I then unplugged the scanner usb connection, did a restart, plugged it back in, clicked on XSane and got the very same error that I got before making all of the changes.

This is the output for sudo sane-find-scanner

# sane-find-scanner will now attempt to detect your scanner. If the
# result is different from what you expected, first make sure your
# scanner is powered up and properly connected to your computer.

# No SCSI scanners found. If you expected something different, make sure that
# you have loaded a kernel SCSI driver for your SCSI adapter.

found USB scanner (vendor=0x04b8 [EPSON], product=0x0122 [EPSON Scanner]) at libusb:008:004
# Your USB scanner was (probably) detected. It may or may not be supported by
# SANE. Try scanimage -L and read the backend's manpage.

# Not checking for parallel port scanners.

# Most Scanners connected to the parallel port or other proprietary ports
# can't be detected by this program

And for scanimage -L
device `snapscan:libusb:008:004' is a EPSON EPSON Scanner flatbed scanner

I would appreciate any help.

Thanks, zoey

This doesn't look like a valid udev rule to me. Where are you getting your "directions" from? Please give us links.

Also see:
http://www.reactivated.net/writing_udev_rules.html

I followed psb6m's instructions because it looked liked they worked for other people.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=108256

I read about epkowa here;
http://reformedmusings.wordpress.com...ntrepid-linux/

Thanks, zoey

That post dates from 2005 - things have changed a lot since then.
Your 10-udev.rules file is not good at all. Please remove it.

I don't think you need this at all. That post refers to an "Epson Stylus CX7800 All-in-One" which is not what you have.
So, for now, I think you should undo these changes.

I think you should look here ( a more recent posting in the ubuntu forums thread ):
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...0&postcount=59
In ubuntu 8.04 and up, you should have to do very little to get your scanner working.

Thank you so much! Now it works. I need to learn how to do better searches. I did search for my scanner, but obviously I didn't find the right post.
Thanks again, zoey

You did find the right post, but you didn't read it to the end. You live & learn.
Pleased it's working for you now.