I have two Canon MF3010 printers. Both scan and print under Windows with no problems. Both scan and print under Ubuntu MATE, but are very flaky. Sometimes they print jobs immediately, but much of the time, the job just disappears into the ether and I have to send the job an average of 3-5 times before it’ll print. (When it prints, it prints quickly). Sometimes I have trouble with a scan, but less often.
To summarize:
Two printers. I’ve made sure to print to the correct one; they show up as MF-3010 and MF-3010 (2).
Three USB cables
Two computers runnign Windows - a desktop and a laptop; one desktop running Ubuntu MATE with the problem
Tried several USB ports on the MATE Desktop with the problem
Nothing I do seems to help.
Looking at the front panel of the printer, it looks like it receives data sometimes, but not complete. The front panel indicator does a sort of circular pattern when it receives data; one of three things will happen when it fails to print:
Most of the time, no indication of received data
Sometimes, it’ll move and then stop. It definitely won’t print until I turn the printer off and back on, but that most definitely doesn’t help it to print, just prevents it from 100% failure
Sometimes, it’ll move for a fraction of a second and then stop and go back to displaying the “1” it normally sits on (indicating if you wanted to make a copy, it’d make one copy). In this case, it doesn’t fail like the middle option (when it appears to receive data and get stuck in a mode of waiting for data), but I’ve noticed more failures when it does this.
Rebooting the desktop doesn’t help. Nothing I’ve done helps.
Sometimes, it’ll get in a mode where it’ll decide to print upwards of a dozen jobs in a row - it seems to help if I let the printer completely finish printing a job before sending it the next one. I did this a day or two ago - had 11 jobs to print. Ten in a row, no problems. Then it took me literally more than an hour to print the last one, with dozens of attemps and switching of cables, printers, rebooting, etc.
I cant tell you how to install your printer in Linux. But, I do have a fall-back option if all else fails.
Install Virtualbox. Install an old version of XP/Win7 in Virtualbox. Set up a shared folder that can be used by both your Linux host and also the XP/Win7 virtual machine, Connect the printer to the XP/Win7 virtual machine while it is running. Install your usual windows drivers for the printer in the virtual machine, Then, whenever you need to print something form Linux, put a copy of the file on the shared folder, fire up your virtual machine and print it from there.
To write all of the above out, it sounds really complicated. but, it really isn’t. Once set up, it adds about 30 or 40 seconds to your print job. That’s all. It basically means there is no bar to using any so called “windows-only” peripheral device with Linux.
If you don;t get fixed up with Linux drivers, let me know on here and I will take you through, step by step, how to implement the virtual machine solution outlined above
@YourPalMark: I’m using the driver downloaded from CanonUSA - I recall something about having to install cups… but I have to admit that’s hazy at this point. It may be solved, but I’m replying with answers as best as I can to your questions anyway just because I hate when others don’t answer my questions in this type of situation.
@wolfman: Did that and did some testing and it’s working for now — haven’t had it fail once. Although sometimes that happens; so it’s possible it’s not fixed. I don’t want to waste toner, so I can’t know until it fails, and that might be a few days until I need to print several documents again. lol. But a tentative very-thank-you.
@stevecook172001: Well, that’s worth bearing in mind. I’m quite comfortable setting up VMs, so no worries there - thank you for the offer of help. I hope it doesn’t come to that! lol
