SOLVED: CUPS Laser printer woes - Brother HL-L2300D

Support & Help Requests Hardware
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21

Then I suggest you look at my previous post on the Brother HL-2240.

22

Done, as instructed…

In that file, CUPS keeps track of all active printers. Be sure to delete the grouping of files which are related to the bjc80 printer.

<Printer   {something related to bjc80}
***
DeviceURI    {something with bjc80}
***

Also done, as instructed…

Purge any *.ppd file related to the bjc80.

Also done, as instructed.

Yes:

Have you confirmed that the printer cable is functional, not defective? Have you been able to print on that printer from another computer ... using that same USB cable?

As mentioned earlier in this thread.

Nope:

Are you trying to use a USB3 socket on your computer to print?

My PC marks those in blue & they are ignored in favour of the ordinary ones.

So now I ask - having done & replied to the above - what might you suggest to get my HL-L2300D to start printing for me, please ??

Many, Many Thanks Ericmarceau.

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23

I searched your posts & found nothing definitive:

Link to that post or thread, please ??

Thanks.

24

Does it work under any other Linux distro? You should be able to test with a live usb image.

Also, I don’t understand the install driver discussion. Is it needed? I thought you could simply print to a cups compliant printer.

25

Canon has their own protocol (UFR II)for properly interracting with their printers, and those drivers are mandatory.

26

I’m guessing you meant Brother not Canon. I can print to my Canon printer as a cups printer without any need to install anything. I just can’t take advantage of all the settings as Canon doesn’t make Linux drivers.

So if I plug a Brother printer into any Linux distro the system will have no idea what the device is nor how to communicate with it without installing further software? Is that correct?

27

I'm running out of ideas.


I would start by replacing the USB cable and see what comes from that.


The online manual for your printer offers the following procedures for various "resets" of your printer. I would suggest performing all 3 in sequence:


I'm not sure, but you might be hitting the issue outlined on this page:


Last resort, take the printer to someone else's computer to verify that it does in fact print (using Windows or Linux). If not, you have a bad cable or, worse, a bad printer. :frowning:

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28

I did specificially mean Canon for UFR II.

For Brother, I haven't been able to identify whether there is, or isn't, a custom printer protocol.

29

As mentioned above:

Compared with how simple it was to get my HL-5050 installed this has been a total nightmare.

Silly me thought getting another Brother HL series printer would also be a good idea - WRONG.

Thanks, but…:

That isn’t an option for me right now as I’m still living out of a jumble of boxes after moving.

@Ericmarceau:

You’ve worked very diligently in trying to help here !!

And for all your efforts you have my utmost respect & appreciation.

If this has reached a dead end I’ll just sadly accept that fact.

I may have to face a need to get yet another printer sometime soon - though it does baffle me utterly that this one worked lickety-split connected same cable & all to my ancient win7 netbook.

Genuine Thanks to All who’ve pitched in here.

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30

Maybe you would have more luck on a Brother support forum. You never know!

31

Thanks Ericmarceau !!

Sadly, the only forum I found (https://communityforum.brother-usa.com) says this:

Note: This community forum is only for SDK's and development related questions using Brother SDKs and interfaces. Any product related questions will NOT be answered and need to be raised with Brother Customer support here. https://www.brother-usa.com/brother-support

And nothing about their ‘support’ linked there is interactive except this (sort of…) =>

I’ll dig around a bit more before I surrender to the inevitable, which has me wondering which laser printer brand/model will…’just work’ right out of the box ??

Thanks Again !!

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32

My final thought (unless I think of something else): In my Control Center > Printers dialog, I always found my Brother printer listed twice, I don't know why. I always printed to the one that I had set the Location in Printer Properties to Dave's Study, and it worked, and so I had marked that one as the default.

Yesterday, however, I tried to print a test page to the other printer... and nada. So I deleted it, and now I have only the Dave's Study printer that is marked as the default.

So I'm wondering: How many printers are listed in your Printers dialog? Is it more than the number of printers you are using?

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33

Brother HL-2240 does it.

34

Do you mean by the above that it will ‘just work’ right out of the box ??

AND=>

Is that HL2240 or HLL2240 ?? (‘Cuz my HLL2300D is a nightmare here.)

Thanks.

35

Yes.

You will need to buy a used one as they no longer make them.

I bought mine on Ebay.

Why go through a lot of aggravation when you can buy a printer that works?

Perseverance is a good quality.

"It's okay to give up when a goal is clearly unattainable, when a situation is making you consistently unhappy, or when you've exhausted all reasonable options."

36

That really depends on the OS. Mint found my Brother MFC-J480DW without installing any software, but as you said not all functions work. Ubuntu Mate did not without installing the drivers and then everything worked.. Installing the scanner hardware has been a bit more difficult. Document scanner could not find the scanner until in installed Xsane, then both could find the scanner.

This is my install. It worked on every OS I have tried except ParrotOS, which is sandboxed and I never figured that out.

cd Downloads (where I have extracted the driver package mine is linux-brprinter-installer-2.2.4-1 from the tarball using engrampa
cd Setup
sudo bash linux-brprinter-installer-your installer software (always copy and paste this from software package)
model no. MFC-J480DW (my printer)
Will you specify the Device URI? [Y/n] ->n
Test Print? [y/N] ->y

If you have already installed it the uninstall packages will remover the drivers or you can use synaptic before reinstalling.

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37

Finally - this strangeness got even stranger…much better…but very strange !!

Having seen mention of the HLL2400D - just for yuks I tried using that driver instead - followed all the destructions and to NO avail, the CUPS access didn’t work at all.

I then closed everything and saw where Ericmarceau had suggested trying ‘system-config-printer’ in a PM, so I tried that.

The printer control panel opened - HLL2400D was present - so I tried making a test page…AND IT WORKED !!!

Then tried several other jobs, and all printed pretty much instantly - this is one seriously fast printer IMO.

So it looks like all is now well - no clue as to HOW - but I’m fine with having a working printer by mysterious means after all the struggling for naught.

Sincerest thanks to ALL the folks here who have pitched in with helpful replies !!!

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