Assistance on getting Brother printer to work

Okay. I burn ISOs, checksum them and if they match I keep them around. I have Solus 3 as an ISO which I can set up and ‘try’ to print from? Still, as I said before printing, in live DVD mode isn’t always possible. I’m not even sure I managed to print in Manjaro from the ISO for example. I do think my best bet would be the Solus ISO but can’t really even guarantee that. PCLinuxOS was one print from two plays for example. Do you want me to go and try Solus 3 and Manjaro KDE and then report back on the understanding that it may not be conclusive?

And, sorry, I just had a look in CUPS and I couldn’t find anything to search for Brother printers there. I typed the 2700 in one section but nothing showed up.

Cheers
M.

Oh, even though the USB one has a USB connection, it’s still using CUPS and the same CUPS as the other one that can’t be deleted. Should i have different modes of action for the two different formats… should the USB printer be something other than CUPS for example?

M.

CUPS is the generic printing system used on Ubuntu (and most, if not all distros), it’s not the printers themselves. It handles the connections (USB, wi-fi, ethernet or whatever), the drivers and so on. Every printer your computer has access to will use CUPS.

Well, you can try. If by chance it works, we’ll have more information.

(As a sidenote, you can use an USB key do make a LiveCD in the future if you don’t want to burn CDs.)

In the CUPS web interface, you have a “Printers” menu which gives you the list of printers connected to your computer. There, do you see one or two printers?
When you click on a printer’s name (as you did before), you have informations about it (driver, connection…) and the list of jobs below. There’s also a “Jobs” entry in the top menu if you want to see only the jobs.

What I asked is, if there are two printers shown on the CUPS web interface (USB + wi-fi) and you click on each of them, do they have the same driver defined? and if you send a document to print with each of them, are the jobs the same or do they have a different status?

Just quickly, yes, both printers have the same CUPS drivers. Sending a print request is pretty much the same message. Actually, I lie. The second one won't even allow me to print a test page! By disabling it, I could then delete it. BUT, it came back again almost immediately lol... it won't be killed lol!

I think the problem is that it has the 631 connection and even when I change it to something else it just comes back to that same setting after i delete it. It thinks it is the local host or something. Totally weird.

M.

I kind of know the DVD burn process these days so I'll probably stick to that lol.

I'll have a quick play on the ISOs and report back later. Given that it is my bed time I'm not sure if I stay up much after i run Solus and/or Manjaro lol

If you’re talking about the 631 in the address, it’s just the port used by the CUPS server. Nothing to worry about.

Well, I would’ve come straight back on last night after loading the Solus DVD to tell you the result… except my internet went down and I’ve only just got it back…and i only hope it stays back on lol… not reliable sometimes in this area.

Solus found and recognized my printer almost immediately. One thing Solus is good at is recognizing hardware. It looked like it found a second one as well but I ignored it because the first one looked like the USB one. I immediately tried to do a test print and I just expected it to go… but it didn’t. When I looked into it again, it was connected ‘as a link’ to local host, which is the port used by the CUPS server as you mentioned above. I have to be honest here, I’m 99% sure that my other printer never ever had a localhost link setting like that. For some reason I think it’s that setting which is stopping the printer actually working. It had a different address and then a CUPS driver. I know it sounds crazy but it’s almost like the localhost part is hijacking my printer and/or system and stopping things from working properly.

I tried to come back last night to ask you but of course everything dropped out at this end. Seriously though, I almost certain that the 2700 printer wasn;'t connected up the way this 2710 is and it was the 2700 that worked lol.

Cheers
M.

It’s very unlikely that Solus used something different than CUPS, It’s more probable that you just didn’t know it was there, as it’s not something a typical user will use (but it’s more useful than the GUI in the Control Center when looking for information, to me). :wink:

localhost represents the local machine, it’s a shortcut for the IP address 127.0.0.1. CUPS works as a client/server software and listens on port 631. localhost:631 is just a way of saying “the service on port 631 on the local machine”, i.e. the printing service, i.e. CUPS.

If you open a browser on Solus and go to http://localhost:631, I assume that it displays the CUPS web interface (if not, I’d be really surprised)? If so, can you check what’s the job status when you try to print something, to compare with Ubuntu (“Idle - Unable to add documents to print job”).

Yeah, it’s the same message ‘processing page 1’. I thought it would have cancelled it by now given the time it’s been on the system.

Here is the difference though. The printer with the one job processing has as its location ubuntu-mate-mjc, it doesn’t have localhost as its location. It is possible that this job is a hangover from when I was on Ubuntu Mate last night before I went to Solus, but I don’t think so. The one which has the localhost address on it, the one I can’t for the life of me kill, doesn’t have any outstanding prints showing… it just says idle.

And it was the one with localhost in its address that wouldn’t print for me on Solus last night. Just out of interest, even if I take the USB out, it should still be connected by wifi shouldn’t it? Okay I did that and it changed the message. The message now says ‘rendering completed’. and ‘unable to send data to printer’ is also there as a message. Putting the USB back in doesn’t change anything back again. Just fiddling.

Makes me wonder whether I need to completely re-install just to try to get things back to normal again?

Cheers
M.

I think it is, as there’s no reason Solus would be aware of anything related to MATE. I assume your printer has a memory for queued jobs and you didn’t power it off since you sent this doc?

I think you’d have to restart the printer and/or the system.

I doubt it’d change anything. :confused:

BTW, when you installed the printer (on Ubuntu MATE and Solus), you properly followed the instructions on Brother’s website ? especially the part about specifying the printer model (in your case MFC-L2710DW) as argument of the installation script? Then specified “n” for the device URI if you were on USB or the correct one for wi-fi/ethernet?

To be honest, previously on Solus and even Manjaro, the printer sorted itself out. I didn’t need to go to the Brother website at all, I didn’t need to go into terminal at all… it all just happened automatically. I mean, this was literally days/weeks into my introduction to Linux - I wouldn’t have known enough to do any of the stuff we’ve been playing with. And I know that probably sounds ‘plain wrong’ but with the wireless only option on the 2700 (USB connector killed by the dog lol) , it just sorted itself out totally… and printed automatically lol. It was kind of hit and miss in Manjaro in that I fiddled but didn’t know what I was doing… I was kind of surprised when it all started ‘just working’. But yeah, definitely no Brother website and definitely no terminal in either case.

M.

Even in live DVD mode last night, Solus just found and added the printer without me having to do anything at all.

M.

It’s possible that Solus and Manjaro include a driver for your model that isn’t available on Ubuntu (it’s even possible that they repack the driver from Brother). Or that there’s one on Ubuntu and the one from the Brother’s website is optional but IIRC you checked at some point if there was another driver in the list for your model and it wasn’t the case?

When fiddling with the Wine installation I had you uninstall the Brother drivers, so obviously you had installed them by yourself before: was it because the printer wasn’t automatically added by Ubuntu MATE?

I asked a question before that I don’t think you answered (or I forgot/missed it): on the printer itself, you have some kind of LCD screen, right? Is it supposed to display the list of queued jobs? If so, do they appear there (even with a status like “on hold” or “error”) when you try to print something?
For me, with what you’ve tested so far, the connection is ok and the issue happens after in the chain of events: either on the driver level (it can’t send data to the printer for some reason) or on he printer level (data is sent to it but it can’t be processed for some reason).

EDIT: maybe something to try there. It’s in german but from what I understand, it will clean the CUPS settings. Not sure it’d be useful but it’s worth trying:

sudo service cups stop service cups-browsed stop
sudo mv /etc/cups/printers.conf /etc/cups/printers.conf.bak
sudo rm /var/cache/cups/job.cache
sudo service cups start service cups-browsed start

I adapted the commands a bit for Ubuntu. Also, after these, your printer should be removed from CUPS as the config file will be reset, so you’ll have to add it again.

Okay, one by one. When it comes to computer stuff, I really am a complete newbie. Whatever happened with the old 2700 wifi printer was just handled by the distro. On Solus, it just happened… and maybe they used some sort of local best option CUPS wireless driver… really don’t know. On Manjaro was a bit harder, it wasn’t as automatic but it did eventually set up and work with a bit of playing around… but, I will say that whatever I did, I didn’t understand what I was doing… but it did get itself going anyway.

And yes, Ubuntu was the first time I’d actually had to try installing a printer by using the Brother website because it just wouldn’t work of and by itself as the other distros had. I honestly can’t guarantee that the 2710 drivers are exactly the same as the 2700 drivers even though they have the same notated .gz file number of the same size and developed at the same date. I had expected that Ubuntu would’ve worked as easily as the others had in all honesty. I was a bit surprised at how difficult it all turned out to be. I had seen the CUPS interface once before, on Manjaro I think, but I only looked at it, groaned internally and left. I can’t say for sure that there wasn’t some ‘localhost’ connection, but I honestly don’t think there was.

The printer does have an LCD screen but it is always in FAX sleep mode. It only lights up if I go back through my Win 7 machine and print through the Control Centre in Win 7. It does light up if I turn the printer off and then on again, but in Ubuntu, it always seems to be in sleep mode. It has woken up a couple of times, but not every time, we’ve tried scan mode though. Couldn’t see the LCD but I could hear the machine doing something. I do get messages in Ubuntu though, on the top panel. It tells me if i have a print pending or something. There was one up there this morning but I cancelled it. And, i do think you were right. Based on the time on this message it was from when I was playing around in Ubuntu and not in Solus.

I’m going to assume that the commands you’ve given me here for terminal need to be done one by one lol. I’ll have a go and include anything useful from the reporting in terminal. Okay nothing happened out of the ordinary in terminal. And both printers are still showing in the GUI. Should I restart the system just in case that is necessary?

cheers
M.

Oh, without having restarted both printers are still showing up in CUPS. All i did was copy/paste and enter your commands in terminal:

emjaycee@ubuntu-mate-mjc:~$ sudo service cups stop service cups-browsed stop
[sudo] password for emjaycee: 
emjaycee@ubuntu-mate-mjc:~$ sudo mv /etc/cups/printers.conf /etc/cups/printers.conf.bak
emjaycee@ubuntu-mate-mjc:~$ sudo rm /var/cache/cups/job.cache
emjaycee@ubuntu-mate-mjc:~$ sudo service cups start service cups-browsed start
emjaycee@ubuntu-mate-mjc:~$ 

Cheers
M.

Even after restarting both printers are still showing in the GUI… just so you know.

Cheers
M.

Did your printer/scanner work prior to fiddling with these various solutions offered earlier in this thread?

Edit: Just trying to backtrack whether these are seperate issues or the same.

Nope. Nothing worked at all lol. Like I said, I’ve been surprised that it has been such an issue. My old printer (Brother MFC-L2700DW) was ‘broken’ by my dog so I had to set it up to print wirelessly (it was a drama but I got there lol). It did print but the scanner part was totally stuffed lol. But, the ‘wireless’ 2700 printed seamlessly on Solus and I managed to make it print on Manjaro. I had decided to get a new printer (Brother MFC-L2710DW) anyway but I didn’t try the new one till I put Ubuntu Mate 17.10 on my computer to try out. As you can see from the previous messages, it has just been one issue after another lol. The 2710 is a slightly faster, slightly higher resolution, higher memory version of the 2700 I originally used. The .gz install file has the same nomenclature for both the 2700 and 2710 and I’ve assumed that they are the same drivers… doesn’t guarantee it though, I do understand that. There are ‘two’ printers currently installed on Ubuntu - the one with the USB connection and another one, that is I assume a wireless connection. The ‘wireless’ one has a ‘localhost’ CUPS website connection, whereas the USB one doesn’t. Neither print/scan. And I can’t even ‘delete’ the ‘wireless’ one from the system… it just keeps coming back lol. It just won’t die :slight_smile:

Cheers
Michael

Cheers
Michael

Sounds strange indeed.

Sadly, I have very limited experience with printers and scanners.

You only tend to get experience with stuff when it DOESN’T work :slight_smile:

Michael

Yep :slight_smile:

First, did my solution in regards to Wine work? If so you may want to mark the topic solved as the libsane issue is a known one and more people are likely to run into that issue on 17.10 (until it gets fixed).

Sencond, you may want to open a separate topic for the printer/scanner issue, mentioning Brother and possibly the model name to get the attention from the people with the right knowledge. Right now the troubleshooting part of it is being burried in a lenghty thread seemingly related to Wine.