Problems printing to Brother HL-L2300D (Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS)

[aj34]

Are there known printing issues with Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS?

Would appreciate help with an irritating printer problem. Since I installed Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS earlier this year, I've had an intermittent printer issue that I don't understand. Sometimes, everything prints just fine on my USB-connected Brother HL-L2300D printer whereas at other times, the printer produces no output yet it's printing light flashes (in the same way it does when it actually outputs a printed page) yet does not print (i.e. printer remains silent and doesn't attempt to draw the paper in). When this happens, Ubuntu informs me that printing has completed and, subsequently, there is no document in the printer queue. Often, I uninstall/remove the printer when this happens, turn the printer off and on again then reinstall the printer. Sometimes this does the trick, sometimes it doesn't.

This printing issue has occurred at various times in the past few months under different conditions and I can't identify any common conditions in the way I'm attempting to print. Yesterday, I successfully printed off a few sheets, one after another, when printing inexplicably ceased even though I had changed no settings - other than to select portrait rather than landscape (as if that should make any difference). At other times, printing refuses when I attempt to print after I've just booted the PC.

It's tempting to suspect a printer problem but the Brother HL-L2300D prints consistently well when using Windows 10 (dual boot PC) but as I don't get on with Windows, I prefer to use Ubuntu.
PS My knowledge of computer software is minimal so I won't understand much jargon. Thanks for your consideration.

[oldfred]

Are you using USB or WiFi to connect to printer?

My Brother HL_L2390DW has both and I think it gets confused. The only issue I have is that I think it tries using WiFi and should be using the USB connection. I seem to have to change printer as several are shown in list of printers. My wife needs the WiFi to print from her iPad, but my Desktop is directly connected with USB.

I did see that the USB driver ippusbxd has been updated to ipp-usb in newer versions of Ubuntu but my 20.04 still uses the old driver & newer is not available.

[aj34]

Thanks for your reply.

The HL-L2300D is a basic model and doesn't have wifi or a wired Ethernet connection - just plain old USB into PC.

The difficulty with intermittent problems that appear (apparently) at random is that it's almost impossible to identify the cause - let alone effect a solution.

Shame, Ubuntu looked so promising and seemed more logical than Windows but it looks like I'll have to stick with Windows after all.

[yancek]

The link below gives some information on using a terminal to print as well as how to get detailed information on your printer(s)

https://www.networkworld.com/article...mand-line.html

Take a look at the YouTube video at the link below which explains printing from a terminal which should simply things and hopefully clarify things for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ksoS1pbJM8

[brian_p]

I'll try a long shot. Please give

lsusb -v | grep -A 3 bInterfaceClass.*7

[kurt18947]

I have two Brother machines, both ethernet connected. I tend to use Brother's drivers, the automatically installed ones seem to often have niggles. I've had very good success with the Brother installer.
I seem to recall some glitches with 20.04 and USB printing but don't recall any details. Here's Brother's page for your printer:

https://support.brother.com/g/b/down...300d_us_eu_ase


to keep things neat, I download the driver to it's own subfolder. The install process will drop one or more .deb files in the folder where the download is located. This is more of an issue with all-in-ones with scanner support

Ignore most of the FAQs, they've long been superseded in Ubuntu.

[brian_p]

I'll try a long shot. Please give

lsusb -v | grep -A 3 bInterfaceClass.*7

No need to be frightened of this command. It simply tells us whether your device is capable of using the IPP-over-USB protocol. You don't want to know? All well and good.

[SeijiSensei]

Try using the "Driver Install Tool" available at https://support.brother.com/g/b/down...s_eu_as&os=128.

[aj34]

Thanks very much for your replies, folks. Much appreciated.

I hadn't realised I received more replies - can I get email notification of thread replies/responses like I do for other forums I use?

Unfortunately, I don't understand some of your replies but I've attempted to follow the instructions I could manage. I tried typing the "code" into the terminal (is this the same thing as "command line"?) provided by brian_p and got the following result:

rfaceClass 7 Printer
bInterfaceSubClass 1 Printer
bInterfaceProtocol 2 Bidirectional
iInterface 0

...along with four identical error-type lines that said that something couldn't be done (sorry, forget exact wording). This was with the printer turned on and USB connected to PC. With printer turned off, I just got the four lines of error-type code.

Means absolutely nothing to me (and I don't understand "IPP-over-USB protocol " either). Perhaps this result means something to someone?

I then accessed links provided by yancek in post#4. Sorry, but I really don't get the point of these. I don't intend to print using terminal. Perhaps I've missed the point?

Finally, I tried out the Brother download suggested by kurt18947 and SeijiSensei. I downloaded the Brother driver install tool into a folder yet I can't access it using the terminal command: cd Xxxxxx (were Xxxxxx is the folder name) as instructed in the Brother instructions (I get the response: "folder couldn't be found"). Would appreciate advice on this.

Just to re-emphasize - I am a novice at this stuff.

Thanks again for your assistance (and patience!)

[brian_p]

Unfortunately, I don't understand some of your replies but I've attempted to follow the instructions I could manage. I tried typing the "code" into the terminal (is this the same thing as "command line"?) provided by brian_p and got the following result:

rfaceClass 7 Printer
bInterfaceSubClass 1 Printer
bInterfaceProtocol 2 Bidirectional
iInterface 0

...along with four identical error-type lines that said that something couldn't be done (sorry, forget exact wording). This was with the printer turned on and USB connected to PC. With printer turned off, I just got the four lines of error-type code.

Thanks. However, the idea I had in mind will not work.

Means absolutely nothing to me (and I don't understand "IPP-over-USB protocol " either). Perhaps this result means something to someone?

See https://wiki.debian.org/CUPSDriverlessPrinting.