Epson scanner kippered by upgrade to 20.04

[Timothy Taylor]

I have recently upgraded from Ubuntu 18.04 to 20.04.

My ET-2650 was working perfectly over USB in 18.04, with the [epson-inkjet-printer-escpr_1.6.33-1lsb3.2_amd64] and [imagescan-bundle-ubuntu-18.04-1.3.38.x64.deb] packages installed.
Since upgrading to 20.04 and installing the new Epson Scan 2 software, I get "unable to communicate with scanner. make sure it is connected and turned on" errors. This is odd, because I can print OK and the ET-2650 is listed in the "select a device" dialog. The new Document Scanner app behaves similarly - it correctly ID's the ET-2650 but throws an "unable to connect to scanner" error when I try to scan.

Luckily, I put 20.04 on a new HDD. The scanner still works fine with Simple Scan if I boot from my old 18.04 disk.

How can this happen with a later release?? What happened to Simple Scan ?
If it's not broken, don't fix it!

[blackbird34]

Have you tried other scanning apps for linux? Skanlite and gscantopdf are both free software and might help.

See https://alternativeto.net/software/s...platform=linux

[Timothy Taylor]

Have you tried other scanning apps for linux?

Yes, I tried Skanlite and Xsane, but they gave similar communication errors. I saw a comment on another forum which said that VueScan worked when all else did not, so I tried that. And BINGO! The free version only saves to pdf with a watermark though. Out of curiosity I tried Document Scanner again - that also worked! As did Epson Scan 2 and all the others.

It would seem that the VueScan install sets something to do with (USB?) comms that the other installers don't?

Anyway, the wretched thing works now and I can stop wasting my time struggling with stupid stuff that should just work - and stay working between upgrades!
I was reluctant to upgrade because I've had these sort of issues before...