How make scanner function of Canon MG5250 work? (MG5200 series)

Question

I just bought a Canon MG5250 multifunction printer because I thought that it would work well with Ubuntu, and the printing function is installed using these instructions.

But I still need to get the scanner to work and my attempts so far have not helped:

1. Thep above instructions don't do anything: SimpleScan still says there's no scanner detected.
2. I found this post in the Ubuntu Forums but it's too terse; it refers to "patching libsane source" but doesn't explain this. As a beginner, I need more precise instructions.
3. scanimage -L responds with No scanners were identified.
4. sane-find-scanner responds with found USB scanner (vendor=0x04a9 [Canon], product=0x1749 [MG5200 series]) at libusb:001:002. Your USB scanner was (probably) detected. It may or may not be supported by SANE.

Question:
Should I try the approach about "patching libsane source" or can you recommend a better/smarter/ simpler solution?

I like SimpleScan very much for its simplicity so if a recommendation is to switch to some other software, it should be something equally one-click simple.

Solution 1

This question has been annoying me since the beginning.

Finally, with the installation of Ubuntu 13.04 this problem has solved itself because in this version, Ubuntu's built-in SimpleScan recognizes my existing Canon MG5350 scanner, so I can finally have a one-click scanning function.

Solution: upgrade to Ubuntu 13.04.

Solution 2

I just delved into the packages, they do provide a sane module for canon multi-function scanners. And the second package does contain the right files.

Firs thing though, cd dpkg -i is complete rubbish, that's not a valid command and would never work no matter what. I'm editing it out of the other answer so other people aren't confused by it.

I would get you to list the sane backends, but sane is very poorly designed and can't be bothered to include diagnostic functionality. The only thing to try is redownload the scanner package from canon, extract the files and double click on the common i386 package followed by the mg i386 package and install them via the software center.

Use scanimage from the command line to confirm if it's now working scanimage -L and if not, restart the computer and check again.

Solution 3

Just use the Canon software : type scangearmp in command line.

Solution 4

While the scanner worked with simple-scan worked out of the box for Ubuntu 14.04, it's again broken in 16.04. scanimage -L identifies the scanner successfully, simple-scan also lists the scanner, but scanning fails with a connection error.

If you're affected you can try to use the solution described here and use the experimental libsane and libsane-common packages from Debian experimental. Versions 1.0.26 did the trick for me.

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Comments

[Admin]

I agree. To make multi-page PDFs you have to scan each page as an image, then drag each image to it's own page in a LibreOffice Writer document, then export to PDF. All I can recommend is just go back to a HP for your next printer when your ink runs out on the Canon. The price difference between refills and a new printer is often small.

[Admin]

@Tom so you're saying that Canon just won't work? That would be sad. I got the printer with lots of refills so it will take a while to use up. I could of course just boot into Windows instead - but I'd like to switch to Linux.

[ebed]

Thank you Martin, I will try these steps and report back -- but it will be next week because I am traveling until then. Thank you also for editing the bad parts out of the other post.

[ebed]

I updated my question with points #3 and #4. Basically the scanner is detected by SANE but apparently not usable. Typing man scanimage as suggested by scanimage totally overwhelmed me. What could be good next steps?

[Martin Owens -doctormo-]

Hmm, yes. scanimage -L should list the scanners detected and scanimage > output.pnm should perform a standard scan. If it's scanning from the command line then simplescan should work too. My guess though is that you'll see the error there and can post it here.

[Sanam Patel]

I just tried this and got no search result. That's interesting though, maybe I will find where it installed to and create a custom .desktop launcher. Someday...

[Michael Härtl]

Unfortunately the support in SimpleScan seems to be broken in 16.04 again. While SimpleScan and also scanimage -L finds the scanner, it fails to use it. There's a bug report about this. If you're on 16.04 maybe you can confirm that the scanner does not work out of the box. The original canon drivers still work, but you can't use the nice and simple SimpleScan anymore.

[Michael Härtl]

If you're affected, upgrading to the latest experimental package of libsane and libsane-common fixed it again for me. See here: askubuntu.com/a/717682/18373

[w-sky]

1.0.27 is ok too. :) But I had to use the --auto-deconfigure option to install libsane experimental because it would break dependencies for all other sane packages.