Network scan with Brother MFC

Question

I have a Brother MFC-J615W printer & scanner connected to Wi-fi router by LAN. Also, just upgraded to Ubuntu 18.04 (Hooray ;).

Already in 17.10 I had the problem, printer drivers work fine (not without a fight), but whatever I do can't get scanner to work. I have read every manual out there:

• from Brother website
• from SANE
• every related question on AskUbuntu

I really don't know what to do next. I'm a student and scanner is very important to me, considering going back to disgraceful Windows just for that reason.

Thanks in advance, Gal.

Solution

One needs several steps to get a Brother Scanner; if one uses the install script, it does seem to cover some or all of those steps; Brother provide an FAQ http://support.brother.com/g/s/id/linux/en/faq_scn.html?c=us_ot&lang=en&redirect=on and from that

1) sudo apt install libusb-0.1-4 ..even if networked do this http://support.brother.com/g/s/id/linux/en/faq_scn.html?c=us_ot&lang=en&redirect=on#f00107

2) http://support.brother.com/g/s/id/linux/en/faq_scn.html?c=us_ot&lang=en&redirect=on#f00101 copy files under /usr/lib64/ to /usr/lib/.As the MFC-J615W is a brscan3,

sudo cp /usr/lib64/libbrscandec3.so.1.0.0 /usr/lib
sudo cp /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother3.so.1.0.7 /usr/lib/sane
sudo cp /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother3.so.1 /usr/lib/sane
sudo cp /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother3.so /usr/lib/sane
sudo cp /usr/lib64/libbrscandec3.so /usr/lib
sudo cp /usr/lib64/libbrscandec3.so.1 /usr/lib

3) for a usb connection, one needs a udev rule; http://support.brother.com/g/s/id/linux/en/instruction_scn1c.html?c=us_ot&lang=en&redirect=on#u13.04 and you download a tiny file brother-udev-rule-type1-1.0.0-1.all.deb

4) for network config, Brother offer this http://support.brother.com/g/s/id/linux/en/instruction_scn1b.html?c=us_ot&lang=en&redirect=on

brsaneconfig3  -a  name=(name  your  device)  model=(model  name)  ip=xx.xx.xx.xx

They suggest to check it worked, do this

brsaneconfig3  -q  |  grep  (name  of  your  device)

Does any of this help?

Comments

[Apologician]

It would probably be more economical on your student budget to purchase a supported printer (most likely under $100.00) than to rent the Windows suite for nearly $400.00 per upgrade.

[Apologician]

While it's not possible that you have read everything, you might consider posting some of the output to your question based on the many sane configurations resolutions suggested. If you posted a few things you have tried, it would save us time of giving you the same suggestions, and help us to understand what you might be doing wrong. There are many generic drivers that will work. Also brother has software specific for Ubuntu that will work. Which ones did you try to install and what was the error messages or outcome during the install process?

[Chicko]

For now it is more economical because I have a great discount as a student. I think Microsoft try make people addicted to their environment while they're young. Of course "everything out there" was a figure of speech. The thing is, It didn't present any error at any time. I follow the instructions, I read about the commands to understand the logic of the instructions, but when I type the last command and reboot both SimpleScan and Xsane don't recognize the scanner, as the manual say they should. This is why I can't present any output. It simply doesn't work without telling me Why...

[Apologician]

Sorry for responding to your figure of speech. I'm glad to help, but sometimes the figure of speech sounds like an "or else (Windows) threat" I can provide you with drivers. It will help to know which drivers you tried to install that are not working. I've configured lots of Brother scanners using both the default detected drivers from the Ubuntu repository as well as the Ubuntu install drivers from Brother. Brother supplies printer drivers. Can you add to your message which ones you installed? (continued)

[Apologician]

And how you installed those specific drivers. Details of how you did it will help me to understand better where you are going wrong... what you are doing different from what has always worked with the many brother printers I have installed in a number of different Ubuntu versions. There's a good chance that going through the motion to describe the process that you have done, might resolve your issue. It's not clear what you have actually done, by your message. What are some of the commands... what is the name of the driver file you downloaded from Brother, that didn't work?

[dgo]

They got some kind of nerve using the word "Sane" in the description of this config setup

[Jordan Rieger]

This worked for me with a Brother MFC-J470DW on a fresh install of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Follow the link to Brother's site in Step #2 above and use the steps under "For brscan4 Users:". For some reason, the Simple Scan app built into Ubuntu still wouldn't scan properly (it would just crash/quit out after starting the preview process.) But installing the xsane 0.99 application did the trick.

[ebed]

@JordanRieger do you mean to say that you got SimpleScan working by installing xsane 0.99? Or do you use xsane 0.99 instead of SimpleScan now?

[Jordan Rieger]

@TorbenGundtofte-Bruun the latter, SimpleScan still wouldn't work properly for me, but xsane 0.99 did.