Installing Epson 3490 photo scanner - usb solved

[Bobo-the-Cat]

I have been evaluating Linux Mint and so far it beats all other distros I have yet tried. One of the last tests I have tried is to get a scanner to work. The scanner (Epson 3490 photo, usb) was not attached during the original Linux Mint install.

So I plugged in the scanner and installed as many sane and xsane packages as I could find. When I run xsane, I get the following error output:-

Failed to open device 'snapscan:libusb:011:002 invalid argument'

If I type: scanimage --list -devices into a terminal window, it will list the scanner as an Epson flatbed scanner.

Does this mean that my scanner is not supported? If so, I am surprised as it is a popular scanner and about 2-3 years old. Where do I go from here? Do I have to attempt to find some old scanner for sale on Ebay that is supported, or like many others in the forums here, keep a Windows machine going just to allow me to continue scanning?!!!

Where is the definitive list of hardware supported by Linux Mint, I have searched for this on the site but canot find it? Hope someone can help as I genuinely thought I was on the finishing straight to dispensing with Windows.

[Husse]

This is odd - a lot of unanswered posts from june 10....
It could be that the scanner is not recognized....
Oh did you install a driver? Look here
http://www.linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopi ... =51&t=1763
I was so enthusiastic over Elyssa that I forgot to install the driver for my scanner Only installed the printer driver in my all-in-one

[Bobo-the-Cat]

So a couple of weeks ago, out of the blue - the scanner suddenly worked, it scanned
OK and scanned to printer OK. Just when I thought the problem had sorted itself,
the scanner stopped working again ! - with the same error.

So why is this? I have not uninstalled anything, only used the package maneger
to update Linux Mint (Beta 48) with the latest package versions.

Could it be that downloading and installing some wireless packages have caused it
to stop working again?

So I typed ALT-F2 and selected to run it in a separate terminal window. This time the
error messages were better:-

[snapscan] Cannot open firmware file /usr/share/sane/snapscan/your-firmwarefile.bin
[snapscan] Edit the firmware file entry in snapscan.conf.

The above directories and files do not exist. Does anyone know why not? According to
Sane/Xsane websites, the Epson Perfection 3490 has been supported for a couple of years.

[bonifazius]

hej,
got the same prob for some weeks, using ubuntu 8.04, gnome desktop. seems a hard bug, solved it by entering xsane by ROOT. ( sudo xsane doesn't work alltime so actually it should be named insane ), but at this moment, the only good working scanner option.
hope they solve it fast, but when you see the list on launchpad i doubt it......

from the low-lands

bonni

[bonifazius]

sorry forgot the link:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/232535

if you have detailed info post it, helps evryone !!!

thx,

bonni

[Husse]

SANE and XSANE are known to have to run as root in some cases
Did it really say your-firmwarefile.bin in the error message?

[Bobo-the-Cat]

I am now continuing investigation of this problem, but have re-installed with Linux Mint 6 from scratch.
I have also added a post to the newbie questions over this.

I have now installed Xsane on v6, so I have both Flegita and Xsane. Please note that even on Mint v5,
about 1 in every 10 days - for some reason Xsane would work 100% ! So I could not see the need to download
special drivers, since it can occasionally appear to find the right driver - but unfortunately - not for most
of the time !

So now today on v6 - these are the error messages on a newly rebooted machine running as myself in a
terminal window.

1 Xsane
----------

[snapscan] cannot open firmware file /usr/share/sane/snapscan/your - firmwarefile.bin
[snapscan] Edit the firmware file entry in snapscan.conf

(the above 2 lines are exactly as stated!)

An initial window says scanning for devices, then an error window has the message:

Failed to open device `snapscan:libusb;004;005':invalid argument


2. Flegita
-----------

1. Lists debug info - versions of flegita.
2. Same snapscan errors as for Xsane above

An error window occurs during probing with the message:
An error occurred while accessing device. The scan backend returned the following error: invalid argument.

[Bobo-the-Cat]

Continuing the investigation myself!

1. Followed advice on Ubuntu forum (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... +bug/72506):-
sudo aptitude install libsane-extras

Installed OK, but made no difference.

2. In directory: /etc/udev/rules.d, should there be a file called: 45-libsane.rules ?
If so, any ideas why it is not there? And what should its contents be?

3. In directory /etc/sane.d, there are 2 files: epson.conf and epson2.conf, one has two entries
SCSI EPson and SCSI Epson SC, one just SCSI Epson. Both have the line: usb uncommented.

4. Command: sane-find-scanner - finds and Epson scanner at: libusb:004:005.

5. There is no such directory as: /usr/share/sane/snapscan, and therefore no snapscan.conf

Does anyone out there really understand how scanners are suppoed to be configured on Linux?

[nick]

Hi

If you go to http://www.avasys.jp/lx-bin2/linux_e/scan/DL1.do you will find
Epson scanner drivers for your scanner, they worked great on my all in one
(in Deb form) and gave me a program called Imagescan, this also enabled Xsane etc to work

Nick

[Bobo-the-Cat]

Thanks Nick,

I was just about to post, when I saw your reply. Just after my last post I downloaded the Avasys
stuff and had install RPM itself using package manager.

However when trying to run the rpm -i <packagename> command, I get a long list
of library dependencies, the first of which is /bin/sh. It appears that plain old Bourne Shell
is not available in Mint. Also where do I get all the others from?

# rpm -i iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386.rpm
error: Failed dependencies:
/bin/sh is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libatk-1.0.so.0 is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libc.so.6 is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.0) is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.1) is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.1.3) is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.2) is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.3) is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.3.4) is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libdl.so.2 is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libdl.so.2(GLIBC_2.0) is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libdl.so.2(GLIBC_2.1) is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libgcc_s.so.1 is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libgcc_s.so.1(GCC_3.0) is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0 is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0 is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libglib-2.0.so.0 is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libgmodule-2.0.so.0 is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libgobject-2.0.so.0 is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0 is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libieee1284.so.3 is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libjpeg.so.62 is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libm.so.6 is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libm.so.6(GLIBC_2.0) is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libnsl.so.1 is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libpango-1.0.so.0 is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libpangox-1.0.so.0 is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libpangoxft-1.0.so.0 is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libstdc++.so.6 is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libstdc++.so.6(CXXABI_1.3) is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libstdc++.so.6(GLIBCXX_3.4) is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
libusb-0.1.so.4 is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
sane-backends is needed by iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386
#

[Husse]

You can't run
# rpm -i iscan-2.10.0-1.c2.i386.rpm
in a Debian based distro
You can use alien to convert it to a .deb

Code: Select all

apt install alien && build-essential

Not quite sure if build-essential is necessary but I think so
After this use alien to convert the rpm file - you (probably) have man alien to help you

[Bobo-the-Cat]

Thanks Husse,

Have used Alien to convert to a .deb. However, there are Warnings that scripts have not been converted. When
looking in man - it says use the --scripts option with caution. So I have not converted scripts - is this OK?

Also, now that I have the 2 .debs, how do I proceed as all the instructions in the Avasys document are for rpm.

[Bobo-the-Cat]

Moving on ... it is possible to get .deb packages from Avasys by downloading the tar file. Trouble is that when I try to install, it requires a package called sane-backend which does not exist in Package Manager. In addition, it requires that sane is itself installed from a tar - which means uninstalling it and re-installing a tar version for this. Error messages from my initial attempt to install without doing the above, indicated that sane-backend was missing. Googling this got me to the Sane project website (http://www.sane-project.org/sane-backends.html) which had links for the Epson 3490 to Epson (dead-end) and it was not easy to understand what to download from where? Even if this could be made to work, surely it might stop working if I do certain downloads using Package Manager again! So I have decided to abandon trying to install Avasys software as this is too complicated and try to find another solution.

So I found an Ubuntu forum and adapted some advice there and the scanner now functions with both Flegita (scanner utility) and Xscan. Phew !!!!

1) It is a good idea to have the following packages are installed (use Package Manager):-
- libsane
- libsane-extras
- sane
- sane-utils
- xsane
- xsane-common
- flegita
- flegita-gimp

2) Install the Epson scanner under Windows and find file: esfw52.bin from the installation directory (C:WINDOWS\system32 ?) or extract it from a cab on the Epson drivers CD.
3) On Linux as root:-
cd /usr/share/sane/snapscan

if snapscan directory does not exist, then create it:-

mkdir snapscan

4) Copy file esfw52.bin to the snapscan directory. Remember both directory
and file must be owned by root.
5) As root, edit /etc/sane.d/snapscan.conf and replace the firmware directory in the first lines with /usr/share/sane/snapscan/esfw52.bin. Save and close the file.
6) Log out of root and in as your normal user.
7) The scanner should now work with both Flegita and Xsane.

[Bobo-the-Cat]

I have solved this problem by installing the Windows driver (see previous post). So if there is the option in Linux Mint to install Windows drivers for Wi-fi, would it not be much easier for all the Linux people who have scanner problems, to offer the installation of Windows drivers for scanners as well in future releases of Linux Mint?

[Husse]

There is some wrapper for other drivers but it is not much used but yes this is a good suggestion and will find it's way to the suggestions section

[robrow4]

This is the first time I've posted ,needless to say I'm a Newbie. Bobo-the-Cat explains how he managed to get Windows drivers for his scanner working from Mint. Does this mean for example Canoscan drivers & Epsom Photo Printers could also be installed in this way?

[Husse]

In theory it would work if the problem is of the same kind - the only way to find out is to try

[robrow4]

Thanks Husse, however I'll wait to see what develops. I'm going to install Mint6 x 64 when released and hopefully Virtual Box and run my Scanner from that.

[rastiazul]

the scanner works but only if i run the programs as root


btw i the one i have is 4490 photo (scans film also)

[pdc_2]

this seems a recurrent issue in various linux distros: that USB scanners may only be run by default as root:

in the May 2009 Linux Format magazine, (pg 105), Mike Saunders suggested two commands typed into a terminal that help determine if there are permission issues:

sane-fine-scanner-q

scanimage -L

He says: the first should discover the scanner whoever runs it; the second can only access the scanner if they have permission;

........... so if the scanner shows up on the first, but NOT the second, there is a permissions issue, such that as user you do not have permission to access the scanner;

I have tried editing various rules, and not succeeded!!

What I have resorted to doing is:

lsusb

and I might get the answer 004 002 for the scanner

then in a terminal as root I type

a+rw chmod /dev/bus/usb/004/002

that works for that log-in;

yip; a bit arcane; but it works (for me)