This is not so much a question as two tips on how to succesfully install a Brother MFC-J4420DW printer on 64bit Linux Mint 18.3 xfce. I struggled with it for a couple of days, but now everything works fine.
I used Pjotr's script at https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/15. This didn't seem to work. The printer did not react to test prints (nor print commands from other applications).
Eventually I decided to take a closer look at the outcome of
"bash linux-brprinter-installer-2.2.0-1 MFC-J4420DW"
When I looked at the output from the terminal, I found out that a part of the installation of ia32-lib caused problems:
Quote:
"libavformat-ffmpeg56 : Depends: libavcodec-ffmpeg56 (>= 7:2.7) but it is not going to be installed or
libavcodec-ffmpeg-extra56 (>= 7:2.7) but it is not going to be installed
libchromaprint0 : Depends: libavcodec-ffmpeg56 (>= 7:2.4) but it is not going to be installed or
libavcodec-ffmpeg-extra56 (>= 7:2.4) but it is not going to be installed
libopencv-highgui2.4v5 : Depends: libavcodec-ffmpeg56 (>= 7:2.4) but it is not going to be installed or
libavcodec-ffmpeg-extra56 (>= 7:2.4) but it is not going to be installed
vlc-nox : Depends: libavcodec-ffmpeg56 (>= 7:2.4) but it is not going to be installed or
libavcodec-ffmpeg-extra56 (>= 7:2.4) but it is not going to be installed
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.
(...)
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
lib32stdc++6 : Depends: gcc-5-base (= 5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.4) but 5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.5 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages."
Triggered by the term 'libavcodec' I decided it could be useful to do a fresh install and leave out the 'install multimedia codecs' during installation. So when I started over again I first installed the printer and after that installed the multimedia codecs.
My second trigger was a failure to create the proper directory for lpd.
Quote:
""mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/var/spool/lpd/mfcj4420dw’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access '/var/spool/lpd/mfcj4420dw': No such file or directory
chgrp: cannot access '/var/spool/lpd/mfcj4420dw': No such file or directory
chmod: cannot access '/var/spool/lpd/mfcj4420dw': No such file or directory
dpkg -i --force-all mfcj4420dwcupswrapper-3.0.1-1a.i386.deb"
It seemed as if the script was unable to make this directory. Possibly because in fact it should make TWO directories. I looked into it and found that /var/spool/lpd did not exist. So I figured, may be that was the reason it was not possible to create /var/spool/lpd/mfcj4420dw. So the second thing I did was make this directory myself before installing the printer.
Now everything works fine.
I'm only not sure if both these things (not installing multimedia codecs durting install AND creating the lpd directory) are necessary. However, being a newbie I'm more than happy I resolved the problem.
Brother MFC-J4420DW 64-bit install succeeded neglect multimediacodecs and/or create directory /var/spool/lpd/mfcj4420dw
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Re: Brother MFC-J4420DW 64-bit install succeeded ..
at least you got the printer working.
and sometimes, the answer is as simple as what you tried out,
& whereas some of us would have found a more convoluted method & have that fail at the first hurdle.
Well Done.
and sometimes, the answer is as simple as what you tried out,
& whereas some of us would have found a more convoluted method & have that fail at the first hurdle.
Well Done.
Please edit your original post title to include [SOLVED] - when your problem is solved!
and DO LOOK at those Unanswered Topics - - you may be able to answer some!.
Re: Brother MFC-J4420DW 64-bit install succeeded neglect multimediacodecs and/or create directory /var/spool/lpd/mfcj442
I found this topic while troubleshooting my Brother MFC-J835DW printer on Pop!_OS 20.04 LTS (Based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS)--my architecture is amd64. So for the benefit of anyone else experiencing the same issue, I'll offer the steps I followed to get it working.
After I created the folders /var/spool/lpd/mfcj835dw, I found the following Printer Stage message on the Printer Properties after trying to print the test page:
Processing - Unable to locate printer "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXlocal".
I found after much research that I needed to perform 2 more steps before being able to print over network/wi-fi:
1) Install Avahi Zeroconf Browser (currently 0.7) via the Pop! Shop, and
2) Add the IP Address & printer address/name found in the AZB to /etc/hosts as follows:
192.168.1.XX <tab space> <name/address string>.local
If you're not using Pop!_OS, there may be an easier way to solve this issue. Simply retrieve the IP address for your printer from the printer itself using the touch screen GUI, and then note the printer hostname/address string from the Printer State message above. Add both to the hosts file and try printing a test page. If it still doesn't work, then you may want to try installing Avahi from source, from a Debian package, or using sudo apt-get install avahi
More info on Avahi:
https://superuser.com/a/316767
http://avahi.org/
https://github.com/lathiat/nss-mdns
https://ieee.nitk.ac.in/blog/using-mdns-in-iot/
Links related to troubleshooting "Unable to locate printer" errors:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/CUPS/T ... te_printer
https://people.math.rochester.edu/facul ... ter-2.html
Other related links:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/82016/n ... 285#455285
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php ... 52#p719752
After I created the folders /var/spool/lpd/mfcj835dw, I found the following Printer Stage message on the Printer Properties after trying to print the test page:
Processing - Unable to locate printer "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXlocal".
I found after much research that I needed to perform 2 more steps before being able to print over network/wi-fi:
1) Install Avahi Zeroconf Browser (currently 0.7) via the Pop! Shop, and
2) Add the IP Address & printer address/name found in the AZB to /etc/hosts as follows:
192.168.1.XX <tab space> <name/address string>.local
If you're not using Pop!_OS, there may be an easier way to solve this issue. Simply retrieve the IP address for your printer from the printer itself using the touch screen GUI, and then note the printer hostname/address string from the Printer State message above. Add both to the hosts file and try printing a test page. If it still doesn't work, then you may want to try installing Avahi from source, from a Debian package, or using sudo apt-get install avahi
More info on Avahi:
https://superuser.com/a/316767
http://avahi.org/
https://github.com/lathiat/nss-mdns
https://ieee.nitk.ac.in/blog/using-mdns-in-iot/
Links related to troubleshooting "Unable to locate printer" errors:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/CUPS/T ... te_printer
https://people.math.rochester.edu/facul ... ter-2.html
Other related links:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/82016/n ... 285#455285
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php ... 52#p719752