Mint 21.3 ate my Brother printers

[tbone0106]

One day a couple weeks ago, I was computing happily along on my single-OS Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon PC. For several months, I had a pair of Brother printers connected via USB ports, working as unshared local machines. One was an MFC-L2710DW and the other was an HL-L8360CDW. Both machines worked flawlessly.

Out of the blue, I began to encounter errors on both Brother machines at the same time. The system would detect them, then not detect them, then find them, then lose them. I began getting error messages saying that the printers couldn't accept print jobs. Then, one at a time but close together, both machines disappeared. My Brother printers were GONE. Well, almost..... The 2710 would still scan. But neither printer was detected by the system, and nothing I've tried (reinstalling CUPS, reinstalling the drivers, trying the printers separately, etc.) has made the slightest difference.

I remember an update to Mint just before all this happened. Could that be the problem?

Any help you guys can offer would be appreciated.

[AndyMH]

Just to note that I have an HL-L8260CDW and have absolutely no issues. It is a network printer, connected via ethernet cable. Also have an HL4140CN also network printer also connected via ethernet cable, no issues. Running LM21.3.

When I initially got it I installed the printer driver and cupswrapper from brother, mint just found it.

[JeremyB]

I would boot with the printers disconnected, then in terminal run

Code: Select all

dmesg -w

Then plug one printer in and see what is reported in terminal

[tbone0106]

Here's what I got from dmesg, plugging the printers in one at a time:

Code: Select all

[   91.318171] usb 1-1.4: new high-speed USB device number 8 using xhci_hcd
[   91.443516] usb 1-1.4: New USB device found, idVendor=04f9, idProduct=0434, bcdDevice= 1.00
[   91.443534] usb 1-1.4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[   91.443540] usb 1-1.4: Product: MFC-L2710DW series
[   91.443544] usb 1-1.4: Manufacturer: Brother
[   91.443548] usb 1-1.4: SerialNumber: U64969K7N232464
[   91.450544] usblp 1-1.4:1.0: usblp1: USB Bidirectional printer dev 8 if 0 alt 0 proto 2 vid 0x04F9 pid 0x0434
[   91.485574] usblp1: removed
[  139.958316] usb 1-1.3: new high-speed USB device number 9 using xhci_hcd
[  140.087144] usb 1-1.3: New USB device found, idVendor=04f9, idProduct=008f, bcdDevice= 1.00
[  140.087161] usb 1-1.3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[  140.087168] usb 1-1.3: Product: HL-L8360CDW series
[  140.087172] usb 1-1.3: Manufacturer: Brother
[  140.087176] usb 1-1.3: SerialNumber: U64642H7J147204
[  140.092154] usblp 1-1.3:1.0: usblp1: USB Bidirectional printer dev 9 if 0 alt 0 proto 2 vid 0x04F9 pid 0x008F
[  140.111443] usblp1: removed