Sorting Out Problems

Support & Help Requests
#1

Hello all! Ive been using Ubuntu exclusively as my only OS since 6.04 and glad to see MATE in action. I decided to make the switch to MATE the other day across several computers.

First off… MATE is running smoothly on two very old HP Inspiron computers that are both about 10 years old. However Im having some probs on my main desktop I hope can be solved here.

1 - The first challenge is SimpleScan. I have a Canon CanoScan LIDE 20 (old but works) scanner and it just works great in Ubuntu without a problem. It is attached via USB and requires no power cord. Works great in any version of Ubuntu, however in MATE when I try to scan (it sees the scanner) the scan comes out as a black scan and the guts of the scanner dont move inside. Anything I can try to get that working in MATE?

2 - Secondly, on my main system I have several apps crashing on me on the all time. Opera, Firefox, Chrome, etc. I cannot pinpoint the problem specifically but some websites will instantly just crash on me. In FF I dont run any extensions, but in Opera/Chrome I have disabled all of my extensions (mainly adblockers). Thunderbird also crashes on me often.

Im running 15.10 - 64bit on my computer that crashes all the time. I had no problems before installing MATE.

Couple of things…

3 computers had Ubuntu 15.10 which I just installed MATE desktop on and no crashing problems. The system Im using right now that crashes was a fresh install, made with a disc burned at the slowest speed.

Are there any terminal commands I can do to sort out the problems?

Thanks for any tips or advice!

#2

(1) Try installing XSane. There may be a setting that needs to be changed
(brightness / contrast). I use an LiDE 30 with no problems, but it would
not work with simplescan. You have unlocked the scanner sensor…

(2) Run the offending programs from the command line to see any error
messages. Do you have crashes with apps other than the Web browsers
and Thunderbird? Websites with Flash content maybe? Problem with
Flash?

#3

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah I checked the scanner lock. I’ll try xsane next.

As far as programs… I dont know if thunderbird uses flash at all… Never had problems with it crashing before. However pages like Facebook or Instagram will make my browsers crash almost instantly. Youtube doesnt seem to be a prob but its using HTML5 mostly.

#4

Hi @cryptoreporter,

for Canon drivers, see the following link:

For small niggling problems like things crashing all over the place, did you do a disk install and did you follow this advice? (I know you are a Linux veteran but I have to ask!):

#5

Hi Wolfman… I always burn at the slowest speed… learned my lesson way back years ago :slight_smile: but Ive tried a number of things… using different branded discs, using USB drives, using disc creator, unetbootin, burning with brasero, etc.

I installed the Ubuntu desktop on top of my MATE install to see if problems persist.

There doesnt appear to be any scanner drivers on Canons website. The scanner works fine using Ubuntu side. Let me switch to MATE.

EDIT: Im on the MATE environment now and SimpleScan sees the scanner, but the scan comes in as black.

#6

Take a look at the following pages, you might get lucky!. :smiley:

http://search-asia.canon-asia.com/canon__asia_en__asia_p_en/search.x?hf=drilldown&q=Canon+CanoScan+LIDE+20

#7

The scanner problems and app crashing feels like bad memory. I had a system that was
in use for several years with 2 and only 2 bad memory bits in two locations. I finally
let it run the memory test for several days and it would fail one specific test in about
every three passes. Drove me crazy:)

Ubuntu and U_MATE would probably load code in different places – thus Ubuntu would
work but MATE would fail. The system described above would run Ubuntu 64 bit just
fine but would NOT run 32 bit operating system or 32 bit apps without crashing.

The Canon LiDE 20 is a Plustek model made for Canon. It is nearly identical to my LiDE 30.
Both use the Plustek SANE backend.

Good luck.