Xsane no longer works

LornaJ · 11-03-2020, 04:13 AM

I'm on Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS 64bit.
My scanner is the Epson ET-4550 printer/scanner/fax

Since the recent distro I can no longer use the Xsane scanning front-end. It was working sort-of OK over the network up until the last release, though it did occasionally crash and have to be restarted.

But since the last distro I can't get it to work at all. It can see the scanner on the network - in fact, it would appear to see it twice. It sees ESCL EPSON ET-4550 Se flatbed scanner and Epson PID 1101 flatbed scanner.

Whichever one of these I select, it opens the popups to select the required parameters but when I press Scan I get the error "Failed to start scanner:Invalid argument".

It's obviously talking to the scanner because I can hear the scanning arm start to move, but then the error message pops up and it stops.

I've tried reinstalling Xsane but it doesn't fix it. Any assistance gratefully received.

frankbell · 11-03-2020, 07:35 PM

Try starting xsane from the command line. Maybe it will throw some useful error messages to the terminal. It it does, post them here, being careful to surround them with "code" tags, which become available when you click the "Go Advanced" button beneath the compose/edit post window.

You might also take a look at Simple Scan. It came default on one my distros and it works quite nicely.

CVAlkan · 11-03-2020, 09:25 PM

I've also experienced this issue on several machines, with the primary symptom being a message "Scanner Busy" after recent update. Here are more details if this might help anyone to figure out what's going on. I've already posted this to the Linux Mint Forum, but don't really expect a response there. Here is what I posted there:

I'm running Linux Mint 20 on several machines and have used all features of my HP OfficeJet 6700 for several years and several linux Distros. The multi-function device is (and has been for years) connected wirelessly.

For some reason a recent Mint update removed the ability to use the scanner portion. When running xsane, for instance, I get the message that the scanner is "busy" any time I attempt to do a preview.

I believe this problem can be traced to a Debian bug (https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo ... bug=950646) since the symptoms match what I'm seeing; it is marked as "fixed in versions sane-backends/1.0.31-2. Request was from Jörg Frings-Fürst <debian@jff.email> to control@bugs.debian.org. (Wed, 30 Sep 2020 16:48:04 GMT)" Can anyone tell me if this is something that will be incorporated into Mint in the near future?

Of course, I tried the usual [shut everything down] and [reboot everything one at a time], but no luck. I attached the HP-6700 itself via USB to a Windows laptop and it scans just fine, so I don't believe the problem is hardware. Just in case, here are some other things I did (in addition to reading through the many, many postings about similar issues in the past):

==================================================================
Checked Groups:

Code:

$ groups
frank adm cdrom sudo dip plugdev lpadmin sambashare

Code:

$ getent group | grep frank
adm:x:4:syslog,frank
cdrom:x:24:frank
sudo:x:27:frank
dip:x:30:frank
plugdev:x:46:frank
lpadmin:x:114:frank
frank:x:1000:
sambashare:x:134:frank

lpadmin exists, but on-line ubuntu docs say "make sure your user is member of the scanner and saned groups."

Both these groups still exist (per below) and, as shown above, I'm not in either of them.

Code:

$ getent group | grep saned
scanner:x:124:saned
saned:x:127:

Code:

$ getent group | grep scanner
scanner:x:124:saned

SO, I tried:

Code:

sudo usermod -a -G saned frank
sudo usermod -a -G scanner frank

Scanner is still "busy."
==================================================================
Checked libraries
libsane and hpaio show up as installed in synaptic ...
==================================================================
Checked various status commands

Code:

$ scanimage -L
device `hpaio:/net/Officejet_6700?hostname=HPD4C9EF72FAD7.local' is a Hewlett-Packard Officejet_6700 all-in-one

Code:

$ systemctl status saned.socket
● saned.socket - saned incoming socket
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/saned.socket; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: inactive (dead)
     Listen: [::]:6566 (Stream)
   Accepted: 0; Connected: 0;

The word "disabled" seemed suspicious, so I tried

Code:

$ systemctl enable saned.socket
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/sockets.target.wants/saned.socket → /lib/systemd/system/saned.socket.

Xsane still reports the scanner is "busy"

Code:

$ systemctl start saned.socket

Xsane still reports the scanner is "busy"

==================================================================
I also used sane's scanner finder, although I seem to recall that never works with networked devices.

Code:

$ sudo sane-find-scanner
[sudo] password for frank:          

  # 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.

could not fetch string descriptor: Pipe error
could not fetch string descriptor: Pipe error
  # No USB scanners found. If you expected something different, make sure that
  # you have loaded a kernel driver for your USB host controller and have setup
  # the USB system correctly. See man sane-usb for details.

  # Not checking for parallel port scanners.

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

I have no idea if this is normal or not, as I never used this command on a working system.
==================================================================
Tried scanning from the command line

Code:

$ scanimage --device-name=net:localhost:test:0 --format=png > testscan.png

...creates a png file, but it is completely black. Tried a few other options, but no joy.
==================================================================

As for FrankBell's comment, I did actually try Simple Scan, but that simply (no pun intended) ignored any scan requests as well, though it provided no error messages.

Conclusion:
The last time I scanned was only a few weeks ago at max, so I expect what I need to restore is still available (I have several Timeshift snapshots going back far enough, but I have no clue what elements I might need to restore, nor how to locate and restore them without wiping out other subsequent changes.)

Thanks for any assistance.

LornaJ · 11-04-2020, 01:34 AM

Yes, something seems to be badly borked.

Code:

Gtk-Message: 08:27:38.332: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"

(xsane:3943): Gdk-CRITICAL **: 08:27:46.918: IA__gdk_drawable_unref: assertion 'GDK_IS_DRAWABLE (drawable)' failed

(xsane:3943): Gdk-CRITICAL **: 08:27:46.918: IA__gdk_drawable_unref: assertion 'GDK_IS_DRAWABLE (drawable)' failed
Capability : [(null)]
Capability : [image/jpeg]
Capability : [image/jpeg]
Capability : [image/jpeg]
[xsane] ERROR: xsane-startimage not found. Looks like xsane is not installed correct.

kilgoretrout · 11-04-2020, 08:45 AM

Quote:

[xsane] ERROR: xsane-startimage not found. Looks like xsane is not installed correct.

You could try reinstalling the xsane package with:

Code:

$ sudo apt install xsane

Edit: Sorry, I just noticed you have already done that. Please ignore this post.

LornaJ · 11-04-2020, 09:29 AM

I installed canberra-gtk-module and that particular error message has gone away, but the critical errors are still there.

computersavvy · 11-04-2020, 10:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CVAlkan

Of course, I tried the usual [shut everything down] and [reboot everything one at a time], but no luck. I attached the HP-6700 itself via USB to a Windows laptop and it scans just fine, so I don't believe the problem is hardware. Just in case, here are some other things I did (in addition to reading through the many, many postings about similar issues in the past):
--------

Code:

$ scanimage -L
device `hpaio:/net/Officejet_6700?hostname=HPD4C9EF72FAD7.local' is a Hewlett-Packard Officejet_6700 all-in-one

==================================================================
I also used sane's scanner finder, although I seem to recall that never works with networked devices.
......
I have no idea if this is normal or not, as I never used this command on a working system.
==================================================================
Tried scanning from the command line

Code:

$ scanimage --device-name=net:localhost:test:0 --format=png > testscan.png

...creates a png file, but it is completely black. Tried a few other options, but no joy.
==================================================================
.....

Conclusion:
The last time I scanned was only a few weeks ago at max, so I expect what I need to restore is still available (I have several Timeshift snapshots going back far enough, but I have no clue what elements I might need to restore, nor how to locate and restore them without wiping out other subsequent changes.)

Thanks for any assistance.

The scanner finder has never AFAIK worked to find network scanners.

I use fedora, and hplip. The system updates will update hplip but do not update the hplip-plugin that is required for access to scanning on HP MFPs because the plugin is proprietary. It seems the versions must match between the plugin and hplip. After updating the plugin I have been able to use the scanner again.

That plugin can be gotten directly from HP here. Simply download the correct version to match hplip then in a terminal run the hplip-3.XX.X-plugin.run file you downloaded with sudo and it will update the plugin. This is all I have ever needed to do, and it has never been a sane problem, simply the scanner driver (plugin).

@LornaJ it may be that your problem is similar but I cannot verify that since I do not use an Epson printer.

CVAlkan · 11-05-2020, 06:51 AM

Wow, this is so nostalgic - it reminds me of getting an external 8" floppy drive to work on Microsoft Xenix in the mid-1980s.

So, I downloaded the latest hplip, noting that the release notes for the particular flavour I selected indicated that support for Linux Mint 20 had been added. That's good to know that it should work, but rather disconcerting that Mint 20 should need its own modifications. So I shutdown the HP System tray service and rebooted, then dutifully began with:

Code:

$ sh hplip-3.20.9.run
Creating directory hplip-3.20.9
Verifying archive integrity... All good.

which continued nicely until the end, when it reported:

Code:

POST-BUILD COMMANDS
-------------------
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x82 in position 4: invalid start byte

The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./install.py", line 241, in <module>
    text_install.start(language, auto, test_depends, test_unknown, assume_network, max_retries, enable, disable)
  File "/home/frank/Downloads/hplip-3.20.9/installer/text_install.py", line 1416, in start
    cups.getSystemPPDs()
  File "/home/frank/Downloads/hplip-3.20.9/prnt/cups.py", line 291, in getSystemPPDs
    ppd_dict = cupsext.getPPDList()
SystemError: <built-in function getPPDList> returned a result with an error set

Although I don't recall ever having to acquire a separate plug-in to use the HP-6700's scanner portion, I also downloaded the hplip-3.20.9-plugin.run that computersavvy suggested and attempted to re-clean the system and install the two .run scripts in different orders, etc. No Luck. Maybe HP can help I thought, so I hit the internet again.

Google suggested the following link for HpLip help:
https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-i...nting/node/332

The page shows an HP Developers Logo with the following message:

Quote:

Page not found
The requested page "/hp-linux-imaging-and-printing/node/332" could not be found.

Perhaps this is all Covid-related but, given the number of problems I've encountered so far with Mint 20, I suppose it might be time to switch distros again. Sigh...

But thanks for the suggestions; I appreciate them.

P.S. The only other thing I noticed when running xsane that I had never seen before was so trivial that I didn't mention it earlier. For as long as I can remember, the initial xsane preview screen was always blank/white until a preview was captured. Since it stopped working in the past few weeks, it has been showing a red square in the upper left corner that, as a guess, equates to about 4 or 5 inches on a side assuming 8.5x11" paper. If that's a helpful clue, I'd be quite impressed if anyone knows what it means!

johnmb12 · 01-24-2021, 03:47 AM

Yep, same issues here. Did have UbuntuDDE 20.04 installed, trying to scan results in a a mix of results, from a force close, to a "Failed to start scanner: invalid argument". Was working up until a couple of weeks ago. Yes, the preview window has a red square top-left corner.
Have now installed Ubuntu 20.04.1, with exactly the same results.
Thanks.

CVAlkan · 01-24-2021, 07:16 AM

I haven't found any solution yet. Apparently enough people now use their smart phones if they need to scan something that this won't be addressed. Luckily I still have a working Windows 10 machine that I can use if I need to use the scanner's sheet feeder.

johnmb12 · 01-25-2021, 04:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CVAlkan

I haven't found any solution yet. Apparently enough people now use their smart phones if they need to scan something that this won't be addressed. Luckily I still have a working Windows 10 machine that I can use if I need to use the scanner's sheet feeder.

Or Opensuse....

computersavvy · 01-25-2021, 10:17 AM

I wonder if libsane-hpaio has been updated along with xsane and xsane-common. Maybe try reinstalling all those,
Also check the version of hplip and reinstall the hplip-plugin to match.

I have frequently had to update the hplip plugin when hplip is automatically updated from the distro repo but because the plugin is proprietary it has to be downloaded and updated manually, or just run hp-plugin from the command line to update it to match.

With every HP printer I have had recently I have needed to keep the plugin in sync with hplip in order to use the scanner.