Brother scanner problems with Ubuntu 11.10

[smi402]

I have a Brother MFC-8460N printer/scanner/copier/fax on my network which worked flawlessly with Ubuntu 11.04 and previous releases. However, after recently upgrading to 11.10 with the Final Release alternate-amd64 disk the scanner function ceased to work - neither xsane, Gimp nor Simple Scan could find the scanner device. Brother has issued a fix for this problem that applied to the Beta 2 version of 11.10. It is among the FAQs listed here.

The problem arises because of paths to the sane libraries the Brother software uses. I have solved this problem in my installed Final Release 64bit 11.10 by setting up symbolic links to the appropriate libraries as in the code below. You firstly need to get the brscan-skey and brscan packages that apply to your scanner from the Brother site.

My scanner uses the brscan2 package so I then set up the following links (NOTE: Make sure you use the library names that are appropriate to the version of brscan that you installed):

frank@server:~$ cd /usr/lib
frank@server:/usr/lib$ 
frank@server:/usr/lib$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libbrcolm2.so libbrcolm2.so
frank@server:/usr/lib$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libbrcolm2.so.1 libbrcolm2.so.1 
frank@server:/usr/lib$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libbrcolm2.so.1.0.1 libbrcolm2.so.1.0.1 
frank@server:/usr/lib$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libbrscandec2.so libbrscandec2.so 
frank@server:/usr/lib$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libbrscandec2.so.1 libbrscandec2.so.1 
frank@server:/usr/lib$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libbrscandec2.so.1.0.0 libbrscandec2.so.1.0.0 
frank@server:/usr/lib$ cd sane
frank@server:/usr/lib/sane$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother2.so libsane-brother2.so 
frank@server:/usr/lib/sane$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother2.so.1 libsane-brother2.so.1 
frank@server:/usr/lib/sane$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother2.so.1.0.7 libsane-brother2.so.1.0.7

Reboot, turn the scanner on, open a terminal and run xsane. It should then find the scanner device and enable scanning I trust this may help some of those trying to run Brother scanners using 11.10.

Frank

[ct302]

I've been searching for this fix for hours! My Brother MFC-440CN works perfectly now! THANK YOU!!!!

[smi402]

Glad this fix has worked well for you ct302.

[Hugin17]

This fix works with my Brother DCP-J715W. Thanks a lot smi402.

[cometdog]

The corresponding entry in the FAQ worked for me with a Brother MFC-7840W. Thanks for the tip!

[momashi]

I have the exact same printer (8460N) and 11.10 but that solution just did not work for me. Are you connected to the printer via a network or via USB?

[lgharriman]

Thanks for the help. It worked for my Brother MFC-5890CN using Pinguy 11.04

[Halfling Rogue]

Worked for Brother MFC-J835DW on 11.10, with a wireless network setup and a 32 bit machine (meaning only 3 links had to made in /usr/lib from /usr/lib/sane).

Momashi, are you setting up your printer on a wireless network? If so you'll need to config your version of brscan with your printer's IP address as well. eg.:

brsaneconfig4 -a name=Brother model=MFC-J835DW ip=192.168.1.103