Brother HL-3040CN Won't Print

[klausner]

New 3040CN on 64-bit lucid.

Test pages from console work fine.

Cannot print using network or USB. Can http to printer on net, and system recognizes printer when USB attached.

Downloaded and installed Brother's cups & driver files (despite being labeled as 64bit, they were i386) No 3040CN found in driver selection listings! system-config-printer thinks the driver should be for an Epson Stylus Photo 2200!

Tried various generic and foomatic PCL printers.

Tried attachment to lpd://10.10.10.20/binary_p1 and socket://10.10.10.20:9100. No results with lpd address, jobs are just lost. With socket address, get blank pages.

Can't find an lpd file for this printer on line.

Had enough pain getting a Brother HL-2170 to work. Should have learned.

Does one have a 3040CN working with Ubuntu? If so, what's the trick?

[klausner]

I want to express my profound disappointment in the lack of any response to this problem. I'm posting the solution to help others in the same mess, since there seem to be a lot of us.

Kudos go to Limulus on the Linux Foundation Forums for the key to this fix.

Here's the process I finally got to work:

1. Download the printer file and the cups wrapper from Brother.
2. The web page says these are 64bit deb files, but they are not. If you run amd64, you have to install them using dpkg --force-all, or similar force option.
3. Now here is the key. Once you've installed the packages, no print driver for the 3040CN will show up in the menu!!!
4. Instead of picking a printer from the list, select Provide a PPD File.
5. The printer package you installed from Brother will put a ppd file in either /usr/share/cups/model/brhl3040cn.ppd and/or /usr/share/ppd/brhl3040cn.ppd. Enter this into the install dialogue.

Once you've done that, you should be good to go. I wasted three days because Brother's instructions (and tech support) were to half-assed to include this little gem of information. May you have better luck!

[TroyDowling]

Aha, this solves my problem with my MFC990CW. Thanks a tonne. I'm going to fire off an email to the local Brother rep. Hopefully she can escalate that. It's a minor fix to their documentation that makes all the difference in the world.

[morrie]

Thanks, Brother.

I had it setup, and remember it was a pain. Did it just the way you described.
But,
I got a new router and now the network printer doesn't work. I re-installed it and even tried re-discovering it in the driver. It's not fair that this mistake causes so much trouble. Brother messed up on this one. I had previously chosen Brother for their Linux friendliness, but I have to say this printer's support in Ubuntu is .. crappy

I know that the driver was bad enough to have to manually setup myself, and now I have no idea where to start in troubleshooting this. My network is the same, all the computers kept their same IP's, but the printers all had to be reinstalled. (Not sure why) And I sure don't know why reinstallation didn't work on Ubuntu as it did with Windows.

[klausner]

Thanks, Brother.

I had it setup, and remember it was a pain. Did it just the way you described.
But,
I got a new router and now the network printer doesn't work. I re-installed it and even tried re-discovering it in the driver. It's not fair that this mistake causes so much trouble. Brother messed up on this one. I had previously chosen Brother for their Linux friendliness, but I have to say this printer's support in Ubuntu is .. crappy

I know that the driver was bad enough to have to manually setup myself, and now I have no idea where to start in troubleshooting this. My network is the same, all the computers kept their same IP's, but the printers all had to be reinstalled. (Not sure why) And I sure don't know why reinstallation didn't work on Ubuntu as it did with Windows.

I suspect the IP address of the printer is wrong. Ping the address to see if it responds. Log into the router (or switch if you use one), and see if there is a list of attached devices.

[xinel]

this is what i did

To get the brother HL-3040CN to print using ubuntu 11.04 64bit

Go to this website
http://welcome.solutions.brother.com...html#MFC-495CW

Download the LPR driver
Download the cupswrapper driver

follow these steps

sudo mkdir /var/spool/lpd

sudo dpkg -i --force-all hl3040cnlpr-1.1.1-4.i386.deb

sudo mkdir /usr/share/cups/model

sudo dpkg -i --force-all hl3040cncupswrapper-1.1.1-4.i386.deb

You then go to system -> admin -> printing

add new printer

network printer

put in the ip address

hit next

when it asks for the driver select ppd from file

the ppd file is located in: /usr/share/cups/model/brhl3040cn.ppd

hit enter a few times

finished

[spoupard]

Many, many thanks for posting this. I was about to pull my hair out. These instructions allowed me to get printing within a matter of minutes.

[frogotronic]

I want to express my profound disappointment in the lack of any response to this problem. I'm posting the solution to help others in the same mess, since there seem to be a lot of us.

Kudos go to Limulus on the Linux Foundation Forums for the key to this fix.

Here's the process I finally got to work:

1. Download the printer file and the cups wrapper from Brother.
2. The web page says these are 64bit deb files, but they are not. If you run amd64, you have to install them using dpkg --force-all, or similar force option.
3. Now here is the key. Once you've installed the packages, no print driver for the 3040CN will show up in the menu!!!
4. Instead of picking a printer from the list, select Provide a PPD File.
5. The printer package you installed from Brother will put a ppd file in either /usr/share/cups/model/brhl3040cn.ppd and/or /usr/share/ppd/brhl3040cn.ppd. Enter this into the install dialogue.

Once you've done that, you should be good to go. I wasted three days because Brother's instructions (and tech support) were to half-assed to include this little gem of information. May you have better luck!

Worked perfectly on 10.10 - didn't need to manually link to the PPD file.

Thanks,
CH

P.S. I have a Brother HL3070CW that is also working well with Ubuntu.

[dmintz]

I followed these instructions faithfully more times than I care to remember and kept getting errors when I tried to print -- printer not enabled. So I'd re-enable, attempt to print, then get the same error again.

I finally noticed some error briefly appear saying "unable to locate printer." Ah. You see, when I stepped through the installation screens the printer presented itself as "BRN001BA97D9D08" and I accepted it. I thought maybe in the Device URI field I should put in the IP address instead.

Ding!

I don't know much about printers and networking, but I kind of wonder if this has something to do with the fact that right after I did the physical setup of the printer, I went into the web-based admin interface and set the "boot method" to "static" to make its IP static. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and the docs to my other little print server thingy say that static IP will give you "more stable" performance. Now I wonder if the static IP had the ironic effect of making "BRN001BA97D9D08" unlocatable.

Anyway, all this is to say, if all else fails, try substituting the actual IP for the funny string Brother gives you in the Device URI setting.

[MadMax2]

I'm using 11.10 I followed:

this is what i did

To get the brother HL-3040CN to print using ubuntu 11.04 64bit

Go to this website
http://welcome.solutions.brother.com...html#MFC-495CW

Download the HL3040 LPR driver (deb)
Download the HL3040 cupswrapper driver (deb)

follow these steps

The files were installed by the software center program [aptitude??] although they came with a warning that the files weren't of good quality which you had to override.

Then I went to

system -> admin -> printing (in the top right hand corner... just discovered)

and that was it.

So far it is printing o.k but I haven't tested all it's functions.