Hp Scanner Troubles [USB]

[bweinel]

Greetings all,

I'm having an issue when trying to connect an HP 6200C flatbed scanner to Kubuntu 14.04 via USB.

When the scanner is connected, lsusb shows the scanner is there:

bill@speedy:~$ lsusb
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
[COLOR=#008000]Bus 005 Device 006: ID 03f0:0201 Hewlett-Packard ScanJet 6200c[/COLOR]
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 004: ID 046d:c31c Logitech, Inc. Keyboard K120 for Business
Bus 004 Device 003: ID 0461:4d03 Primax Electronics, Ltd Kensington Mouse-in-a-box
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 009 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 008 Device 002: ID 0424:2504 Standard Microsystems Corp. USB 2.0 Hub
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

and a look at /var/log/syslog also shows that the scanner hardware is being recognized, but says that its not a valid device:

Aug  6 08:38:17 speedy kernel: [ 1217.579496] usb 5-4: new full-speed USB device number 3 using ohci-pci
Aug  6 08:38:23 speedy kernel: [ 1222.760594] usb 5-4: New USB device found, idVendor=03f0, idProduct=0201
Aug  6 08:38:23 speedy kernel: [ 1222.760601] usb 5-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
Aug  6 08:38:23 speedy kernel: [ 1222.760608] usb 5-4: Product: HP ScanJet 6200C
Aug  6 08:38:23 speedy kernel: [ 1222.760611] usb 5-4: Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard
Aug  6 08:38:23 speedy kernel: [ 1222.760613] usb 5-4: SerialNumber: SG95N11037HL
Aug  6 08:38:23 speedy logger: loading HP Device 005 003
Aug  6 08:38:23 speedy colord: Device added: sysfs-Hewlett-Packard-HP_ScanJet_6200C
Aug  6 08:38:23 speedy hp-config_usb_printer: hp-config_usb_printer[4557]: error: [COLOR=#ff0000]This is not a valid device[/COLOR]

I checked to see that the current versions of both libsane-hpaio and hplip were loaded. I also noticed when looking at the /dev directory that there was no scanner device showing up there. It also seems odd that the system is identifying it as a hp printer.

I haven't spent a great deal of time on it just yet... but any ideas as to where to go next?

cheers,
bill

[vinnywright]

check to see if you have these as well

Package: hplip
Priority: optional
Section: utils
Installed-Size: 403 kB
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
Original-Maintainer: Debian HPIJS and HPLIP maintainers <pkg-hpijs-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>
Version: 3.14.3-0ubuntu3.2
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14), libcups2 (>= 1.6.0), libdbus-1-3 (>= 1.0.2), libhpmud0 (= 3.14.3-0ubuntu3.2), libsane (>= 1.0.11-3), libsane-hpaio (= 3.14.3-0ubuntu3.2), hplip-data (= 3.14.3-0ubuntu3.2), printer-driver-hpcups (= 3.14.3-0ubuntu3.2), python (>= 2.7), python (<< 2.8), python-dbus (>= 0.80), python-imaging, python-pexpect, python-reportlab, coreutils (>= 5.1.0), lsb-base (>= 3), adduser (>= 3.34), cups (>= 1.1.20), policykit-1, python-gobject-2, wget
[COLOR=#ff0000]Recommends: printer-driver-postscript-hp, sane-utils, avahi-daemon
Suggests: hplip-gui, hplip-doc, python-notify, system-config-printer[/COLOR]

maby ,,,,a HP-deskjet I used to have scaned well once I added all HP packages I could find & sane

VINNY

[bweinel]

Hi Vinny

I tried loading all the additional stuff you suggested and so far no luck. Looks like I'm in for more online research when time premits. The strange thing is that it was working under a previous version (I think it was back around v10.10.) Thanks for the suggestions.

cheers,
bill

[bweinel]

Well I may at least have a partial answer.... after some more web research on hplip I ran across this on the HP site at http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web...ces/index.html when searching for a single function HP Scanjet 6200C:

"Sorry, HP Scanjet single function scanners are not supported by HPLIP. For possible Linux support, please visit: http://www.sane-project.org/"

So apparently hplip does not support flatbed scanners (...even HP flatbed scanners!) So its back to looking for sane backends for trusty that will support it. I do know that one existed back in v10.10.

cheers,
bill

[claydoh]

Well I may at least have a partial answer.... after some more web research on hplip I ran across this on the HP site at http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web...ces/index.html when searching for a single function HP Scanjet 6200C:

"Sorry, HP Scanjet single function scanners are not supported by HPLIP. For possible Linux support, please visit: http://www.sane-project.org/"

So apparently hplip does not support flatbed scanners (...even HP flatbed scanners!) So its back to looking for sane backends for trusty that will support it. I do know that one existed back in v10.10.

cheers,
bill

If you look up your model on the sane website, it might tell you which backend is used for scanning. You may possibly have to edit a file, or add your device id so that the device is recognized

[vinnywright]

try

vinny@vinnys-HP-G62:~$ apt search sane-hp
Sorting... Done
Full Text Search... Done
libsane-hpaio/trusty-updates,now 3.14.3-0ubuntu3.2 amd64 [installed]
  HP SANE backend for multi-function peripherals

the sane site clams it is suported http://www.sane-project.org/sane-mfgs.html and http://www.sane-project.org/man/sane-hp.5.html and http://www.kirchgessner.net/sane.html

did you install

xsane/trusty 0.998-5ubuntu1 amd64
  featureful graphical frontend for SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy)

and try it ?

VINNY

[Teunis]

Another way would be to buy support, I don't say it'll work for you or is worth the money but I'm very happy with VueScan by Hamrick software.
It's a professional quality application supporting lots of scanners and you can try before you buy.

But first get everything *sane installed, historically HP is Linux friendly.

[bweinel]

Hi all,

I finally had some time to walk through troubleshooting my scanner issues and got the issue solved. It was a good learning experience as to the working of the udev hotplug system. I found a helpful, though dated, troubleshooting guide at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/sane

I had to install the following items:

apt-get install libsane sane sane-utils libsane-extras xsane

(Note that hplip and libsane-hpaio are not required and don't support flatbed scanners.)

As Claydoh recommended some backends do need to be enabled for them to work. I checked the file /etc/sane.d/dll.conf to make sure that hp was enabled and uncommented:

sudo nano /etc/sane.d/dll.conf

I also took a look at hp.conf in the same subdirectory to make sure the HP 62X0C line was uncommented (this is there by default.)

Ok.. here's where things departed from the tutorial. The tutorial recommended that you check the scanner with the scanner plugged into the computer via a USB cable, by running the command:

sane-find-scanner

This returned nothing and said the scanner wasn't found. This is likely due to the current configuration of the udev hotplug system in kubuntu not creating an explicit scanner device in the /dev/usb directory. Instead udev creates a device in /dev/bus/usb/005/ corresponding to the udev device number when the scanner is plugged into the system. This is accomplished by the file 40-libsane.rules in /lib/udev/rules.d/.

You can verify that this action occurs when hotplugging the scanner by using udevadm in monitor mode in a terminal window as follows:

bweinel@speedy:~$ udevadm monitor
monitor will print the received events for:
UDEV - the event which udev sends out after rule processing
KERNEL - the kernel uevent

KERNEL[85020.672659] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.0/usb5/5-5 (usb)
KERNEL[85020.674470] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.0/usb5/5-5/5-5:1.0 (usb)
UDEV  [85020.682946] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.0/usb5/5-5 (usb)
UDEV  [85020.686452] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.0/usb5/5-5/5-5:1.0 (usb)

BTW: Further info on the udev system is available at:
man 7 udev
man 8 udevadm

Once this is done, the scanner can be detected by using scanimage as follows:

bweinel@speedy:~$ scanimage -L
device `hp:libusb:005:008' is a Hewlett-Packard ScanJet 62x0C flatbed scanner

Thus showing that the scanner was recognized as usb device 005:008. This can also be verified via an ls command as follows:

bweinel@speedy:~$ ls -al /dev/bus/usb/005
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root      100 Aug 12 09:51 .
drwxr-xr-x  11 root root      220 Aug 11 10:14 ..
crw-rw-r--   1 root root 189, 512 Aug 11 15:15 001
crw-rw-r--   1 root root 189, 518 Aug 11 15:17 007
crw-rw-r--+  1 root root 189, 519 Aug 12 09:52 008

showing that device 008 is now present.

Once this was done I was able to start xsane and check that it could see the scanner, which it did....

I suspect that my original troubles were due to not having the proper drivers loaded for sane and by not understanding how the current udev hotplug system was functioning. Hopefully this short description will save someone else a little time in troubleshooting similar issues.

cheers,
bill

[Teunis]

Thanks for the update, in the past I must have been lucky to not run into these udev issues.
Thanks to your observations it's in the future going to be easier for the next Kubuntu user with an HP scanner.

Now talking about flatbed, the two HP scanners I recently used were all in ones.

[bweinel]

Udev is a very interesting kubuntu subsystem and having been through it, I now have a much better understanding of its function. Hopefully the write up will help others in the future.

Now talking about flatbed, the two HP scanners I recently used were all in ones.

The Hp multi-function scanners are supported by hplip and libsane-hpaio. These seem to be the most used HP devices currently. Just the HP flatbed scanners are not supported. During my search, I also found a note that HP is no longer manufacturing flatbed scanners. So I guess down the road multi-function scanners may be the only alternative, at least from HP.

cheers,
bill

[Teunis]

After the transparency light of my old HP flatbed broke down and needed something new I bought an Epson V600.
Epson still supplies Linux drivers (iscan) but their options are somewhat limited and that's why I combine them with VueScan.

[bweinel]

I haven't tried an Epson scanner... but they used to make a pretty darn good printer. The first printer I owned was an Epson MX80 dot matrix with a serial input board back in the the computer 'dark ages' (...late 70s.) It used fan fold pin feed paper, was very slow, but was reliable.

Ok... now I guess I've dated myself eh?

cheers,
bill