[SOLVED] Difficulty installing network printer Brother HL-2070N

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[SOLVED] Difficulty installing network printer Brother HL-2070N

Post by jimbobs »

Today, I tried to set up my Brother HL-2070N to print from my Linux Mint laptop and have been going around in circles! The printer is connected via wired connection to a router and this laptop is connected wirelessly. I can successfully ping the port the printer is connected to and get a response. However, when I run system-config-printer I get a "CUPS server error: There was an error during the CUPS operation: 'server-error-internal-error'."

Right now, this is what is happening:

Printers
Add
Network Printer
Find Network Printer
Host: 192.168.0.113 (the local IP address of the printer)
Find

At this point, I get a long list of device starting with
JetDirect (192.168.0.113)
IPP (192.168.0.113)
192.168.0.113 (PASSTHRU)
192.168.0.113 (ps)
192.168.0.113 (lp) etc.

No matter which device I select, I get the CUPS error message.

Any ideas either what I'm doing wrong or why this is happening?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Difficulty installing network printer

Post by coffee412 »

You need to go to Brothers site and download and install the driver for the printer.

http://support.brother.com/g/s/id/linux ... edirect=on
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Re: Difficulty installing network printer

Post by jimallyn »

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Re: Difficulty installing network printer

Post by jimbobs »

Thanks for the suggestions. I used the Brother tools and the printer shows up but still isn't printing.

Code: Select all

jfr@Inspiron-1525 ~ $ lpc status
HL2070N:
	printer is on device '///dev/null' speed -1
	queuing is enabled
	printing is enabled
	no entries
	daemon present
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Re: Difficulty installing network printer Brother HL-2070N

Post by jimbobs »

Went to a Windows machine on the same network and the printer seems to work fine (i.e. printed a Test Page) from there. Still won't print from LM using both LibreOffice Writer and Firefox, as well as system-config-printer.

Not sure if this is relevant or not but the Windows machine is running 32-bit Win 10.
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Re: Difficulty installing network printer Brother HL-2070N

Post by coffee412 »

Brother has a driver installer tool. What you probably need to do is uninstall anything that you previously installed for your printer - as a first step.

Download the driver install tool and run it.

http://support.brother.com/g/b/download ... all&os=128

After downloading extract it and make it executable (sudo chmod +x <filename>).

Code: Select all

sudo chmod +x linux-brprinter-installer-2.1.1-1
Then run it as root

Code: Select all

./linux-brprinter-installer-2.1.1-1
(the "./" denotes that the file you want to run is in the same directory as you are in now)

You will want cups printing. Sometimes you need to restart cups for changes to take effect.

Code: Select all

sudo systemctl restart cups
Note that your printer output shows that it is located at /dev/null. This means anything printed from within linux is going to device null. AKA - the black hole of space ;) So, That is incorrect.
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Re: Difficulty installing network printer Brother HL-2070N

Post by AndyMH »

Have you installed the CUPS wrapper?

I've got a HL4140CN - network printer, ethernet cable to router, wireless from laptop. To install I need two files (which I downloaded from the Brother site):

hl4140cncupswrapper-1.1.1-5.i386.deb
hl4140cnlpr-1.1.1-5.i386.deb

From my installation notes - The cupswrapper must be done second, it has dependencies on the other package. The cupswrapper seemed to take a long time to install.

Obvious question - I assume if you goto 192.168.0.113 in your browser you can see the printer 'home' page?
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Re: Difficulty installing network printer Brother HL-2070N

Post by jimbobs »

AndyMH wrote:... Obvious question - I assume if you goto 192.168.0.113 in your browser you can see the printer 'home' page?
Quick answer: Yes. I should have mentioned that: I can ping that address and receive a response, and, also browse the printer home page, read settings, maintenance info, etc. as well as print test and font pages from there.
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Re: Difficulty installing network printer Brother HL-2070N

Post by jimbobs »

AndyMH wrote:Have you installed the CUPS wrapper?

I've got a HL4140CN - network printer, ethernet cable to router, wireless from laptop. To install I need two files (which I downloaded from the Brother site):

hl4140cncupswrapper-1.1.1-5.i386.deb
hl4140cnlpr-1.1.1-5.i386.deb

From my installation notes - The cupswrapper must be done second, it has dependencies on the other package. The cupswrapper seemed to take a long time to install. ...
The Brother Driver Installer Tool installs " ... LPR, CUPSwrapper driver and scanner driver".
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Re: Difficulty installing network printer Brother HL-2070N

Post by jimbobs »

coffee412 wrote:Brother has a driver installer tool. What you probably need to do is uninstall anything that you previously installed for your printer - as a first step.

Download the driver install tool and run it.

http://support.brother.com/g/b/download ... all&os=128

After downloading extract it and make it executable (sudo chmod +x <filename>).

Code: Select all

sudo chmod +x linux-brprinter-installer-2.1.1-1
Then run it as root

Code: Select all

./linux-brprinter-installer-2.1.1-1
(the "./" denotes that the file you want to run is in the same directory as you are in now)

You will want cups printing. Sometimes you need to restart cups for changes to take effect.

Code: Select all

sudo systemctl restart cups
Note that your printer output shows that it is located at /dev/null. This means anything printed from within linux is going to device null. AKA - the black hole of space ;) So, That is incorrect.
Don't know how to uninstall printer stuff other than to delete printer, delete downloaded and unzipped files and folders. Tried the Brother Install Tool to no avail. It appears to be that this sets "printer is on device '///dev/null'"
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Re: Difficulty installing network printer Brother HL-2070N

Post by coffee412 »

Did you add yourself to the printer group?

Code: Select all

sudo usermod -a -G lp <username>

sudo usermod -a -G lpadmin <username>

Log out and then log back in.

EDITING AT THIS POINT TO ADD MORE:

Lets get this thing wrapped up and working eh?

Open your browser and type this in:

Code: Select all

localhost:631
This will take you to the cups printer driver page. Click on printers at the top of the page. You should see your printer listed there. On the right is your printer queue name. Click on it.

You will now see two buttons labeled "Maintenance" and "Administrator". Click on the administrator and choose "Modify Printer". Wait for this to come up and look at discovered network printers. Does your printer show up there? Choose your network printer that was discovered and click continue and follow thru till done.

After this is complete then to make things easier just reboot your computer. After rebooting and logging in see if you can print a test page.
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Re: Difficulty installing network printer Brother HL-2070N

Post by jimbobs »

http://localhost:631
Cups 2.1.3 Page
Printers > Not Found

Aaaargh!
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Re: Difficulty installing network printer Brother HL-2070N

Post by coffee412 »

jimbobs wrote:http://localhost:631
Cups 2.1.3 Page
Printers > Not Found

Aaaargh!
Ok then a couple of things could be wrong.

When installing the driver software from brother you didnt have the printer on or connected. How is the printer connected to the computer?
Networked
Wireless
USB
?
If the printer is connected via a cat5 network cable then make sure the printer is turned on and get the ip address of the printer. You can get this from a print out off the printer if you go into the settings and have it print off the network settings.

Have the printer on and then reboot the computer and go into menu/admin/printers and see if it autodiscovers it.

If "Printers" does see the printer then go back into cups (localhost:631) and see if it shows up. Remember that cups must be restarted in order to use the printer. You can do a "systemctl restart cups" or just reboot the computer.

Let me know the outcome and also let me know how the printer is connected. I have a suspicion that your printer is setup as wireless. If so we will need the ip address of the printer. Also, It would be very wise to select a static network address for the printer - this is a network address that does not change - its static. Otherwise if the printers ip address is dynamic (is not a permanent ip address) then it can change and you will lose communication with it.
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Re: Difficulty installing network printer Brother HL-2070N

Post by jimbobs »

Printer is connected to router via Ethernet cable. IP address is 192.168.0.113 and I can go to that address and see the printer home page. The laptop running LM is connected via wireless to the router.

Is there a way to remove everything related to the printer and start again with a "clean page"?
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Re: Difficulty installing network printer Brother HL-2070N

Post by coffee412 »

jimbobs wrote:Printer is connected to router via Ethernet cable. IP address is 192.168.0.113 and I can go to that address and see the printer home page. The laptop running LM is connected via wireless to the router.

Is there a way to remove everything related to the printer and start again with a "clean page"?
Lets do this instead.

Open "Printers" in the administration menu. Click on 'Add new printer' then select 'Find network printer' and enter the ip address of the printer and see if it finds it.
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Re: Difficulty installing network printer Brother HL-2070N

Post by jimbobs »

coffee412 wrote:
jimbobs wrote:Printer is connected to router via Ethernet cable. IP address is 192.168.0.113 and I can go to that address and see the printer home page. The laptop running LM is connected via wireless to the router.

Is there a way to remove everything related to the printer and start again with a "clean page"?
Lets do this instead.

Open "Printers" in the administration menu. Click on 'Add new printer' then select 'Find network printer' and enter the ip address of the printer and see if it finds it.
It appears to do so. I get a long list under Network Printer staring with JetDirect (192.168.0.113), IPP (192.168.0.113), 192.168.0.113, .... Each has different attributes in RH pane. However, when I click Forward on any of them, I get CUPS server error: There was an error during the CUPS operation: 'server-error-internal-error'.
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Re: Difficulty installing network printer Brother HL-2070N

Post by coffee412 »

jimbobs wrote:
coffee412 wrote:
jimbobs wrote:Printer is connected to router via Ethernet cable. IP address is 192.168.0.113 and I can go to that address and see the printer home page. The laptop running LM is connected via wireless to the router.

Is there a way to remove everything related to the printer and start again with a "clean page"?
Lets do this instead.

Open "Printers" in the administration menu. Click on 'Add new printer' then select 'Find network printer' and enter the ip address of the printer and see if it finds it.
It appears to do so. I get a long list under Network Printer staring with JetDirect (192.168.0.113), IPP (192.168.0.113), 192.168.0.113, .... Each has different attributes in RH pane. However, when I click Forward on any of them, I get CUPS server error: There was an error during the CUPS operation: 'server-error-internal-error'.
Ah ha!

Lets see the output of your cupsd.conf file.

Run and paste this output to the screen:

Code: Select all

cat /etc/cups/cupsd.conf
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Re: Difficulty installing network printer Brother HL-2070N

Post by jimbobs »

Code: Select all

jfr@Inspiron-1525 ~ $ cat /etc/cups/cupsd.conf
# Show general information in error_log.
LogLevel warn
PageLogFormat 
MaxLogSize 0
Port 631
Listen /var/run/cups/cups.sock
Browsing On
BrowseLocalProtocols dnssd
DefaultAuthType Basic
WebInterface Yes
<Location />
  Order allow,deny
  Allow @LOCAL
</Location>
<Location /admin>
  Order allow,deny
</Location>
<Location /admin/conf>
  AuthType Default
  Require user @SYSTEM
  Order allow,deny
</Location>
<Location /admin/log>
  AuthType Default
  Require user @SYSTEM
  Order allow,deny
</Location>
<Policy default>
  JobPrivateAccess default
  JobPrivateValues default
  SubscriptionPrivateAccess default
  SubscriptionPrivateValues default
  <Limit Create-Job Print-Job Print-URI Validate-Job>
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>
  <Limit Send-Document Send-URI Hold-Job Release-Job Restart-Job Purge-Jobs Set-Job-Attributes Create-Job-Subscription Renew-Subscription Cancel-Subscription Get-Notifications Reprocess-Job Cancel-Current-Job Suspend-Current-Job Resume-Job Cancel-My-Jobs Close-Job CUPS-Move-Job CUPS-Get-Document>
    Require user @OWNER @SYSTEM
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>
  <Limit CUPS-Add-Modify-Printer CUPS-Delete-Printer CUPS-Add-Modify-Class CUPS-Delete-Class CUPS-Set-Default CUPS-Get-Devices>
    AuthType Default
    Require user @SYSTEM
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>
  <Limit Pause-Printer Resume-Printer Enable-Printer Disable-Printer Pause-Printer-After-Current-Job Hold-New-Jobs Release-Held-New-Jobs Deactivate-Printer Activate-Printer Restart-Printer Shutdown-Printer Startup-Printer Promote-Job Schedule-Job-After Cancel-Jobs CUPS-Accept-Jobs CUPS-Reject-Jobs>
    AuthType Default
    Require user @SYSTEM
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>
  <Limit Cancel-Job CUPS-Authenticate-Job>
    Require user @OWNER @SYSTEM
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>
  <Limit All>
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>
</Policy>
<Policy authenticated>
  JobPrivateAccess default
  JobPrivateValues default
  SubscriptionPrivateAccess default
  SubscriptionPrivateValues default
  <Limit Create-Job Print-Job Print-URI Validate-Job>
    AuthType Default
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>
  <Limit Send-Document Send-URI Hold-Job Release-Job Restart-Job Purge-Jobs Set-Job-Attributes Create-Job-Subscription Renew-Subscription Cancel-Subscription Get-Notifications Reprocess-Job Cancel-Current-Job Suspend-Current-Job Resume-Job Cancel-My-Jobs Close-Job CUPS-Move-Job CUPS-Get-Document>
    AuthType Default
    Require user @OWNER @SYSTEM
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>
  <Limit CUPS-Add-Modify-Printer CUPS-Delete-Printer CUPS-Add-Modify-Class CUPS-Delete-Class CUPS-Set-Default>
    AuthType Default
    Require user @SYSTEM
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>
  <Limit Pause-Printer Resume-Printer Enable-Printer Disable-Printer Pause-Printer-After-Current-Job Hold-New-Jobs Release-Held-New-Jobs Deactivate-Printer Activate-Printer Restart-Printer Shutdown-Printer Startup-Printer Promote-Job Schedule-Job-After Cancel-Jobs CUPS-Accept-Jobs CUPS-Reject-Jobs>
    AuthType Default
    Require user @SYSTEM
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>
  <Limit Cancel-Job CUPS-Authenticate-Job>
    AuthType Default
    Require user @OWNER @SYSTEM
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>
  <Limit All>
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>
</Policy>
JobPrivateAccess default
JobPrivateValues default
SubscriptionPrivateAccess default
SubscriptionPrivateValues default
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Re: Difficulty installing network printer Brother HL-2070N

Post by coffee412 »

Your problem is actually the cups printing.

Lets make sure its not that you do not belong to the lpadmin group

Code: Select all

coffee@max /etc $ groups
coffee adm cdrom sudo dip plugdev [b]lpadmin[/b] scanner saned sambashare vboxusers
See if you belong to the lpadmin group. If you do not perhaps that is why you are getting this issue. If thats not it then I would reinstall cups as it appears that there is a problem with cups.

See my command above to list your groups you belong too. If you need to add your username to the group then do this:

Code: Select all

useradd -a -G lpadmin your-user-name-here
Then try setting up your printer again with your ip address as we just did. You will have to log out/in again probably for the changes to take effect.
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Re: Difficulty installing network printer Brother HL-2070N

Post by coffee412 »

Also, Before you reinstall cups and after you add your username to the lpadmin group make sure its running and try it again.

Code: Select all

sudo systemctl start cups
If you still get the error then proceed to reinstall cups.
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