[SOLVED] Need help: Getting Brother printer/scanner to work in LinuxMint

haertig · 06-25-2017, 12:08 PM

I am having trouble getting LinuxMint to recognize the scanner on my Brother Printer/Scanner. Printing works fine, but "Simple Scan" does not recognize the scanner UNLESS I invoke it via sudo. Then it recognizes the scanner. Sounds like a simple permissions problem. I noticed the normal user was not in the "scanner" /etc/group. So I added the normal user to that group and logged off/on and verified that the user was now part of that group. But Simple Scan still could not access the scanner when run as a normal user.

Environment:

Brother printer/scanner DCP-L2540DW, connected via USB
LinuxMint 18.1
Drivers installed via Brothers tool: "linux-brprinter-installer"

Any ideas?

Also, I noted that the Simple Scan GUI looks different if invoked as root than it does if invoked as a normal user.

Here are the contents of the normal users Download directory after running the Brother driver install tool (the tool was run as root). You can see that the tool downloaded LPR debs, CUPS wrapper debs, and scanner debs as well as some uninstall tools. dpkg -l confirms that these debs were successfully installed:

Code:

$ ls -l
total 3624
-rw-r--r--  1 root  root    74110 May 23 18:24 brscan4-0.4.4-3.amd64.deb
-rw-r--r--  1 root  root    50852 Sep  4  2013 brscan-skey-0.2.4-1.amd64.deb
-rw-r--r--  1 root  root    17506 Jun 12 16:25 dcpl2540dwcupswrapper-3.2.0-1a.i386.deb
-rw-r--r--  1 root  root    18996 Jun 14  2015 dcpl2540dwcupswrapper-3.2.0-1.i386.deb
-rw-r--r--  1 root  root    26254 Jun 12 16:25 dcpl2540dwlpr-3.2.0-1a.i386.deb
-rw-r--r--  1 root  root    35576 Jun 14  2015 dcpl2540dwlpr-3.2.0-1.i386.deb
-rwxr-xr-x  1 user1 user1   94320 Jun 12 16:20 linux-brprinter-installer-2.1.1-1
-rwxr--r--  1 root  root       46 Jun 12 16:26 uninstaller_brscan4
-rwxr--r--  1 root  root       50 Jun 12 16:26 uninstaller_brscan-skey
-rwxr--r--  1 root  root     1297 Jun 12 16:26 uninstaller_DCPL2540DW
$ 
$ dpkg -l | grep Brother
ii  brscan-skey                                 0.2.4-1                                    amd64        Brother Linux scanner S-KEY tool
ii  brscan4                                     0.4.4-3                                    amd64        Brother Scanner Driver
ii  dcpl2540dwcupswrapper:i386                  3.2.0-1                                    i386         Brother DCP-L2540DW CUPS wrapper driver
ii  dcpl2540dwlpr:i386                          3.2.0-1                                    i386         Brother DCP-L2540DW LPR driver
ii  printer-driver-brlaser                      3-5~ubuntu1                                amd64        printer driver for (some) Brother laser printers
ii  printer-driver-ptouch                       1.4-1                                      amd64        printer driver Brother P-touch label printers
$

The first screenshot below is Simple Scan invoked as a normal user. The second screenshot is when it is invoked as root. Same executable: /usr/bin/simple-scan. Must be something different in the environments causing the different look of the GUIs?

ferrari · 06-25-2017, 03:24 PM

This may be helpful...
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/15

haertig · 06-25-2017, 04:05 PM

Thanks for that link. The article looked very promising, but the structure the article mentioned in /usr/lib64 vs /usr/lib does not exist on my system. That article must be referencing an older Brother installation. Mine doesn't match. For example, the article mentions files named libbrscandec*.so* There are no such files like that anywhere on my system. The article specifically mentions "64-bit Linux Mint 18.x" and that describes my installation 100%, but the article is wrong about existing files and their locations.

Thanks for the link though. It certainly looked promising, but the devil was in the details, and they were wrong.

Code:

# cd /
# find . -name "*brscan*" -print
./var/lib/dpkg/info/brscan-skey.list
./var/lib/dpkg/info/brscan4.list
./var/lib/dpkg/info/brscan4.md5sums
./var/lib/dpkg/info/brscan-skey.postinst
./var/lib/dpkg/info/brscan4.postrm
./var/lib/dpkg/info/brscan4.prerm
./var/lib/dpkg/info/brscan4.conffiles
./var/lib/dpkg/info/brscan4.postinst
./var/lib/dpkg/info/brscan4.preinst
./var/lib/dpkg/info/brscan-skey.prerm
./var/lib/dpkg/info/brscan-skey.md5sums
find: ‘./run/user/1000/gvfs’: Permission denied
./home/user1/Downloads/brscan-skey-0.2.4-1.amd64.deb
./home/user1/Downloads/uninstaller_brscan4
./home/user1/Downloads/uninstaller_brscan-skey
./home/user1/Downloads/brscan4-0.4.4-3.amd64.deb
./usr/bin/brscan-skey
./opt/brother/scanner/brscan-skey
./opt/brother/scanner/brscan-skey/script/brscan_scantoemail-0.2.4-0
./opt/brother/scanner/brscan-skey/brscan-skey
./opt/brother/scanner/brscan-skey/brscan-skey-0.2.4-0.cfg
./opt/brother/scanner/brscan-skey/brscan-skey-0.2.4-0
./opt/brother/scanner/brscan-skey/brscan-skey-0.2.4-1.sh
./opt/brother/scanner/brscan-skey/brscan_mailmessage.txt
./opt/brother/scanner/brscan-skey/brscan_mail.config
./opt/brother/scanner/brscan4
./opt/brother/scanner/brscan4/doc/brscan4
./etc/opt/brother/scanner/brscan-skey
./etc/opt/brother/scanner/brscan-skey/brscan-skey-0.2.4-0.cfg
./etc/opt/brother/scanner/brscan-skey/brscan_mailmessage.txt
./etc/opt/brother/scanner/brscan-skey/brscan_mail.config
./etc/opt/brother/scanner/brscan4
./tmp/brscan_jpeg_PAGE1_6iCBgx
# 
# find . -name "*brother*" -print
find: ‘./run/user/1000/gvfs’: Permission denied
./usr/share/ppd/brother
./usr/share/ppd/brother/brother-DCPL2540DW-cups-en.ppd
./usr/share/app-install/desktop/balazarbrothers:balazarbrothers.desktop
./usr/share/cups/model/brother-DCPL2540DW-cups-en.ppd
./usr/share/doc/lsof/examples/big_brother.perl5.gz
./usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother4.so.1.0.7
./usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother4.so
./usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother4.so.1
./usr/lib/cups/filter/brother_lpdwrapper_DCPL2540DW
./usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/sane/libsane-brother4.so.1.0.7
./usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/sane/libsane-brother4.so
./usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/sane/libsane-brother4.so.1
./opt/brother
./opt/brother/Printers/DCPL2540DW/cupswrapper/brother_lpdwrapper_DCPL2540DW
./opt/brother/Printers/DCPL2540DW/cupswrapper/brother-DCPL2540DW-cups-en.ppd
./etc/opt/brother
#

ferrari · 06-25-2017, 04:14 PM

The article covers creating a scanner udev rule (for setting device permissions). Did you check that such a rule exists? If 'sane-find-scanner' detects a USB-connected scanner device as root but not as user that usually means that a suitable udev rule is missing.

It also mentioned some quirk regarding simple-scan (just in case it is relevant to your situation)...

Quote:

Note: some reports indicate that it might be necessary to run Simple Scan once (and only once) with root permissions, in order to have it recognize the scanning feature of your Brother MFC. So if Simple Scan can't use the scanning feature yet, execute this terminal command:

gksudo simple-scan

This launches Simple Scan with root permissions. Now it should recognize the Brother scanner. After the recognition, close Simple Scan and launch it again normally, i.e. without root permissions. It should work fine now.

haertig · 06-25-2017, 06:48 PM

Thanks again.

I did run Simple Scan as a normal user initally (it didn't work), then as root (it worked), and then again as a normal user (it still didn't work). That was before I posted my initial question.

I did not check the udev rule after seeing the article above that part was off-base with my installation. But you're right in your implication - it's really two separate things - (1) Brother driver locations and (2) udev rules. I'll go check udev later this evening and see what's there, adding what the article suggests if it's missing. I'm not a udev expert to be able to understand exactly what that rule is doing, but I can still cluelessly mimic what they show in the article and see if it works.

Thanks!

ferrari · 06-25-2017, 10:51 PM

It used to be that a rule similar to below was required to set the permissions and group in a custom local rule eg /etc/udev/rules.d/40-brother.rules

Code:

# Brother
ATTRS{idVendor}=="04f9", MODE="0660", GROUP="lp", ENV{libsane_matched}="yes"

but now it seems that Ubuntu/Mint users generally just edit the existing rules in /lib/udev/rules.d/40-libsane.rules with the following

Code:

# Brother scanners
ATTRS{idVendor}=="04f9", ENV{libsane_matched}="yes"

I'm not running Ubuntu/Mint so can't inspect the rules, but it may be that there is a common section within that udev rules file that sets the device node permissions and group for all scanner devices matched in that file.

Hope that makes sense.

haertig · 06-25-2017, 11:06 PM

Thank you @ferrari!!! Adding the udev rule worked.

=======

Summarizing the fix for anyone in the same situation that stumbles upon this thread:

Environment:

LinuxMint 18.1 x64 XFCE
Brother DCP-L2540DW printer/scanner connected via USB

Steps:

(1) Go to http://support.brother.com, click "Downloads, then "Search by Model Name" (enter your printer/scanner model). Click "Linux", then "Linux (deb)", then "Search". Then click "Driver Install Tool". Agree to the EULA and download the tool. Unzip the download and run the tool as "root". When the tool asks you if you will be specifying the URI, answer "no" if printer is USB connected, "yes" if network connected.

(2) Add all userids that will need access to the scanner to the group "scanner".

(3) Add the following to /lib/udev/rules.d/*libsane.rules, right before the last line of the file:

ATTRS{idVendor}=="04f9", ENV{libsane_matched}="yes"

(4) Reboot

ferrari · 06-25-2017, 11:15 PM

Glad to have been of help!