scanner software very slow to load on Mint 17.1 MATE
 

I am running my Epson WF-3620 all-in-one printer/scanner on Mint 17.1 MATE. It worked perfectly after installation. Then, I tried to get my older Epson Perfection 1660 Photo running as well. The 1660 runs with some versions of Mint, but not with others, and I couldn't get it running with Mint 17.1 even after installing the proper drivers from Epson. In the process of trying to get the 1660 to work, I must have borked something. I'm still (mostly) able to scan with the WF-3620, but scanner software is now acting fractious. Yesterday Xsane was working, but today after running Mint Updates, it's not. Simple Scan won't work at all. Today I was able to get iscan to open, but it took several minutes to load. Any suggestions? I'm guessing that I inadvertently created some kind of conflict, because both Simple Scan and Xsane went into terminal loops today. Thanks.

I have some testing ideas:

If you haven't already done so, try starting xsane and simple scan from the terminal. They may throw useful error messages to the terminal. Then try completely removing one of the scanner programs, then test the other. Then reverse and repeat.

Post any error messages back here, being sure to surround them with "Code" tags which become available when you click the "Go Advanced" button at the bottom of the "compose post" window.

@frankbell: Here are the results.
simple-scan: Opened instantly in terminal, but did not recognize scanner, and locked up when I tried to close the program. This was previously my default scanner program.
iscan: Opened in terminal after about 1 1/2 minutes and recognized scanner.
xsane: Opened in terminal after 2 full minutes and recognized scanner.

It appears that I didn't wait long enough when I tested in terminal earlier today. :) For what it's worth, this is a 2-month-old Lenovo M83 that is otherwise very zippy.

@frankbell:
Part 2: test scanner software individually
First, I uninstalled all three pieces of scanner software and rebooted the computer.
Next, I installed simple-scan via software manager. I got the same result as before -- it opened immediately in the terminal window, but would not recognize my scanner.
I uninstalled simple-scan via software manager, rebooted, and installed xsane. As before (realizing that I forgot to mention this), when I tried to open it in terminal a small window opened with the message "scanning for devices". This time, however, after 2 minutes that message was replaced by the message "no devices available". No error code ever appeared in the terminal window. I tried twice and watched.
I uninstalled xsane via software manager, rebooted, and tried to install iscan. Iscan still appears in the software manager, but it and iscan-data are now both grayed out and I was not able to install them.
Result: no working scanner now.

One more thing I forgot to mention: these problems all started when I tried to install VueScan. Uninstalling it did not solve the problems.

A bit more testing.

The printer part of my printer-scanner is working fine.

$ scanimage -L
I checked in package manager and verified that sane is installed.

$ scanimage --format=tiff > test.tiff
manually re-downloaded iscan-data and core packages from Epson site, and installed with GDebi.

xsane starts again now from terminal after 2-minute delay.

I'm not familiar with Mint, but it might be helpful to monitor the realtime kernel output in a terminal window with something like (or equivalent to)
Then plug in the scanner and observe.

Another thought - are you attaching to a USB 2 or USB 3 port? That might be related to the strange behaviour perhaps. Not all hardware interacts with USB 3 host controllers as well as expected.

Further to the above, it might be /var/log/syslog that needs to be observed? A Mint use might be able to confirm here.

Below is a link to some troubleshooting information concerning slow scanner start up

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SANE#Slow_startup

Having two conflicting drivers (eg epson2 and epkowa) defined in /etc/sane.d/dll.conf can apparently result in strange behaviour. So, check this first.

A thread where a user connecting a scanner to a USB 3 host controller experiences problems

http://askubuntu.com/questions/45790...usb-3-0-system

If this is the cause of your issue, one workaround is to disable XHCI mode in the UEFI/BIOS, but there may be other reasons why you don't want to do that.

@ferrari:

$ sudo tail -f /var/log/messages

$ sudo tail -f /var/log/syslog

(I started with my WF-3620 printer/scanner unplugged, then plugged it in.)

I double-checked /etc/sane.d/dll.conf, which I did tinker with during my attempts to get the older scanner working, but I had returned the commenting to the way it was originally. There are two Epson backends listed, epson and epson2. Currently, epson is commented and epson2 is uncommented.

from first link:
I went through an overlapping series of steps when I was trying to get my old scanner to work with VueScan. VueScan was buggy, and I wasn't able to execute some of the instructions in the release notes, so I deleted the program. For anyone who is curious, I itemized all the changes I made for Ed Hamrick. Here is a link to my notes.

$ lsusb
/usr/lib/udev/rules.d/49-sane.rules

I looked in this file when I was tinkering. The correct codes for my old scanner are already there. The codes for the new one are not, but since the new one was already working I did not add its codes to the file.

I did create a file called /etc/udev/rules.d/10-local.rules as part of the tinkering, but when adding the information for my old scanner didn't make it work, I deleted the information again. Now the file is empty.

I had also created a file called /etc/udev/rules.d/40-scanner-permissions.rules, and had added the following rules from the VueScan9 Release Notes:

# usb scanner
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device", MODE:="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb_device",MODE:="0666"

It didn't work, but I had left the rules in the file, so I just deleted them, then tried starting xsane again. Unfortunately, it's still loading very slowly.

Finally, I checked the USB connection. The WF-3620 printer/scanner is a USB 2.0 device, and I am running it through a Sabrent High Speed 10 Port USB 3.0 HUB. This was not an issue when I first installed Mint 17.1 -- both the printer and scanner features of the WF-3620 worked perfectly.

@ferrari:
Re: XHCI mode, I wasn't sure what it was, so I looked it up. If I understand what I read correctly, it shouldn't be making any difference to this printer if XHCI is enabled or disabled, because the computer is a wired desktop and the printer is always plugged in.

It's about whether the xhci_hcd driver is impacting here, and your kernel output does show that the device is connected to a USB 3.0 host controller.
I also note that the usblp device is added then removed, and that on the same bus storage media is detected.
So, I think that the xhci_hcd driver is impacting with the connection and disconnection of this device.

Does this computer have USB 2.0 ports as well? If so, try connecting the multi-function device via one of those. It will then use the ehci_hcd driver, and will probably be handled correctly. If not, try disabling the XFCI mode via the BIOS, then test again and report back.

@ferrari:
Thank you. I will test tomorrow in the daylight and report back.

@ferrari:
I just checked the USB connection for the printer/scanner. It was already plugged into a USB 2.0 port on my hard drive.

I think you mean your computer (rather than hard drive). All we have to go on is the output you shared previously. It clearly shows that the host controller is USB 3.0. Refer to the line showing xhci_hcd (as opposed to ehci_hcd.

For example, my laptop has USB 2.0 and 3.0 host controller ports. If I plug a given device in one of two adjacent ports, I get
while in another (USB 2.0 port) I get
Ideally any hardware connected will be handled identically, but this is not always the case unfortunately.I still believe you are impacted by this.