HPLIP

Linux Mint 13 Cinnamon not seeing scanner.

Asked by Ian M. Stewart

This I suspect is a Linux Mint problem, as the old HPLIP worked until recently, and I hoped that the upgrade would cure the problem. I have upgraded from HPLIP 3.12.6 to HPLIP 3.12.10a and still cannot use the scanner. I used the automatic installer, with settings for Linux Mint 13 and the correct printer, my printer is HP Photosmart Premium c310 PRINT SCAN COPY WEB. I'm using Linux Mint 13 Cinnamon desktop, with regular updates.

The symptom is that Simple Scan says "No scanners detected". As I say, the scan function used to work with the older HPLIP, and recently stopped working (I only use it occasionally). The HPLIP newer version has worked for others, but not for me.

Ian

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Ian M. Stewart
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Amarnath Chitumalla (amarnath-chitumalla) said : 		#1

Hi Stewart,

Is this issue using USB o network also?
Does scan working fine in root mode?

If it is USB and scan works using root, may be issue with permissions so change permissions as follows.

   $ lsusb |grep Hewlett
       (It will display device as Hewlett-Packard.)
        e.g. Bus 001 Device 002: ID 03f0:002a Hewlett-Packard
     --> now change permissions
    $ chmod a+w /dev/bus/usb/001/002

    $ xsane
    or
    $ hp-scan

If scan is not working from root also, please post following commands output here.
$ hp-scan -g
$ hp-check

Thanks & Regards,
Amarnath

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Ian M. Stewart (ims) said : 		#2

Hi Amarnath.

I'm sorry I didn't come back to this yesterday when I fixed the problem.
Using Synaptic, I uninstalled completely anything to do with hplip, or hp anything. I then found that Synaptic would not re-install due to dependancies. I then used apt-get install hplip and everything now works.

hp-check shows: version = 3.12.10a
so what has changed, I don't know.

The printer is connected via the network, ethernet to wireless router. The pc by ethernet to router. The wireless devices still worked OK (different OS).

It seems simply that the installer for 3.12.10a did not adequately clean up the old install and cure the breakage, but it was definately working on 3.12.2 until a MINT update broke it.

I'll mark the thread solved.

Ian

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matt (mitsuve) said : 		#3

Hi Amarnath.

I write here because I've got the same problem as Stewart but I didn't managed to solve it. I'm using Ubuntu 12.04 Precise LTS on my desktop with Gnome Classic as DE, and I tried to follow the steps you suggested above, but nothing changed.
My printer, a HP Photosmart c3180, prints well but doesn't scan at all.
I tried also to remove the package installed with sudo rm -rf /usr/share/hplip and everything went well. Then I installed the file hplip-3.12.10a again just doing the same as Stewart: in effect, if you use Synaptic and you try to cancel the package hplip the comes with the distro, the file 3.12.10a doesn't seem to run and exits showing an error.
That's why I gave sudo apt-get install in a shell and then installed the file mentioned above, that's the 3.12.10a.

All went well, but the scanner of my printer doesn't go.
I tried to change the permissions as you said but nothing changed.
It's a mystery. If only I think that with all the old versions of Ubuntu LTS I didn't have any problem at all!
I'm really angry with this.
I copy here down the result I got running the command hp-scan.
I hope you can help me. Thanks in advance.
The result I got:

matthew@matthew-Desktop:~$ hp-scan

HP Linux Imaging and Printing System (ver. 3.12.10a)
Scan Utility ver. 2.2

Copyright (c) 2001-14 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP
This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, and you are welcome to distribute it
under certain conditions. See COPYING file for more details.

Using device: hpaio:/usb/Photosmart_C3100_series?serial=CN73AC93DN04P9

warning: No destinations specified. Adding 'file' destination by default.
Using device hpaio:/usb/Photosmart_C3100_series?serial=CN73AC93DN04P9
Opening connection to device...
error: SANE: Invalid argument (code=4)
matthew@matthew-Desktop:~$

Revision history for this message
Ian M. Stewart (ims) said : 		#4

Sorry to hear your troubles Matthew.

Just to be completely clear, my cure used Synaptic from the Mint menu system to remove the old hplip. The difference might be that I scrolled down through the listing offered in synaptic, and marked absolutely _everything_ suggesting a link to HP. I then chose "mark for complete removal", which I think may be critical.

I then found that synaptic could not re-install anything, because whatever I marked for install would fail on lack of something else. That is the point at which I opened a terminal and resorted to apt-get install. I assume that the apt-get install got the latest hplip from the repositories, and it sorted out all the dependancies for me. What I ended up with was ver. 3.12.10a, according to hp-check. Mine now works as expected.

I hope that helps.
Ian

Revision history for this message
matt (mitsuve) said : 		#5

Hi Ian,

There is a great difference then: on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS the package hplip is installed as a default package and if I try to cancel it and then install the file downloaded 3.12.10a I got an error.
I had to leave the hplip package, that's I gave sudo apt-get install hplip in a shell, and then I installed the 3.12.10a file.
Linux Mint seems to work different from Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise.
I didn't install this file from the repo of Ubuntu, that's the difference.
Bye.