Simple Scan not finding a scanner
I recently did a full format and reinstall of Linux Mint 13.
I installed the MATE version from DVD but installed Cinnamon on top, and am using that as my default desktop.
As part of the build, I had to connect to my printer. It’s a Hewlett Packard Officejet J4680 wireless multi-function printer and it is well supported by Linux.
Setting up the printer was no problem at all. However, when I went to test the scanner I ran into problems. While I could print pages to my heart’s content, Simple Scan just flatly refused to recognise the scanner.
I searched the Internet and found a few people with the same problem, but no solutions.
It then occurred to me that the setup of the printer had actually been too easy! It just connected and that was that, with no downloading of drivers or anything. I disconnected the printer and logged into MATE. I went to reconnect the printer and it promptly downloaded the drivers. Even better, Simple Scan now worked.
I logged back into Cinnamon and all works smoothly.
It’s not an elegant solution to the problem, but it did solve it.
I had the same problem when i first installed Maya and I believe it’s the “libsane-hpaio” package that’s missing when you first hook up an HP multifunction printer. Probably due to the scanner part of the printer not actually being considered “On” at the time the initial drivers are loaded. The initial handshake coming from the unit probably only sends the printer function ID and not any of the other functions until you actually activate the scanner (manually?). Just a theory though.
The problem seems to lie in the desktops.
When I did a Printer Add in Cinnamon, it instantly found HP J4680 and included it in my list of printers.
However when I did Printer Add in MATE it searched the network, came back and said it had found a HP J4680 and did I want to add it. It then spent some time searching for, and installing drivers. Obviously those drivers/libraries are required for the PC to see the scanner, but they weren’t loaded in Cinnamon.
Does that make sense?
That probably makes sense since with Cinnamon, the new Gnome 3 technology is the one looking for and installing drivers while MATE is using the old Gnome 2 type technology to do the same thing (with Ubuntu underpinnings in both of course).
Oh yes