SANE
Related articles
SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) provides a library and a command-line tool to use scanners under GNU/Linux. Here you can check if sane supports your scanner.
Contents
- 1 Installation
- 2 Configuration
- 3 Firmware
- 4 Install a frontend
- 5 Network scanning
- 6 Troubleshooting
Installation
Configuration
Now you can try to see if sane recognizes your scanner
$ scanimage -L
If that fails, check that your scanner is plugged into the computer. You also might have to unplug/plug your scanner for /etc/udev/rules.d/sane.rules
to recognize your scanner.
Now you can see if it actually works
$ scanimage --format=tiff > test.tiff
If the scanning fails with the message scanimage: sane_start: Invalid argument
you may need to specify the device.
$ scanimage -L
device `v4l:/dev/video0' is a Noname Video WebCam virtual device device `pixma:04A91749_247936' is a CANON Canon PIXMA MG5200 multi-function peripheral
Then you would need to run
$ scanimage --device pixma:04A91749_247936 --format=tiff > test.tiff
For Acer/BenQ hardware
If you own an USB scanner from Acer (now BenQ), you need to download a suitable firmware binary and configure /etc/sane.d/snapscan.conf
.
- Find out which model you own and take note of the USB ID:
$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 010: ID 04a5:20b0 Acer Peripherals Inc. (now BenQ Corp.) S2W 3300U/4300U
- Go to snapscan main page and see whether your scanner is supported and which firmware you need (e.g,
u176v046.bin
). - Search the firmware image on the Internet and download it to
/usr/share/sane/snapscan/
. - Edit the head of
/etc/sane.d/snapscan.conf
and configure the following two lines:
firmware /usr/share/sane/snapscan/u176v046.bin /dev/usb/scanner0 bus=usb
For HP hardware
For HP hardware you may also need to install the hplip package (see hplib supported devices) and/or hpojAUR (see hpoj supported devices).
- Uncomment or add
hpaio
andhpoj
to a new line in/etc/sane.d/dll.conf
. - Running
hp-setup
as root may help you add your device. -
hp-plugin
is the 'HPLIP Plugin Download and Install Utility'. -
hp-scan
is the 'HPLIP Scan Utility'. It requires python-pillow .
For Hewlett-Packard OfficeJet, PSC, LaserJet, and PhotoSmart printer multi-function peripherals, run ptal-init setup
as root and follow instructions. Then start the ptal-init daemon.
For Brother hardware
In order to install a Brother Scanner or Printer/Scanner combo you need the right driver (which can be found in the AUR). There are only four drivers to choose from (brscan1-4). In order to find the right one you should search for your model at the brother linux scanner page.
After you installed the driver you need to run (eg. setupSaneScan2 for brscan2 compatible devices):
# /usr/local/Brother/sane/setupSaneScan2 -i
For brscan4:
# /opt/brother/scanner/brscan4/setupSaneScan4 -i
so the drivers/scanner are recognized by sane.
For network scanners, Brother provides a different configuration tool for each brscan version (eg. brsaneconfig2 for brscan2 compatible devices):
# brsaneconfig2 -a name=<ScannerName> model=<ScannerModel> ip=<ScannerIP>
Example:
# brsaneconfig2 -a name=SCANNER_DCP770CW model=DCP-770CW ip=192.168.0.110
Scan-key-tool
Brother has released a tool to enable scanning to be triggered by user interaction with the scanner itself (e.g. by selecting one of "Scan to email", "Scan to image", etc. on the scanner keypad) rather than by an attached computer. This can be set up by installing the brscan-skeyAUR package and starting brscan-skey.service
using systemd. Note that by default this service runs as the brscan-skey user which is created by the package, whose home directory is located at /srv/brscan-skey
.
Brother supplies some default scripts that are executed when a scan type is selected on the keypad. These may require the installation of some optional dependencies of the brscan-skeyAUR package. For all options apart from "Scan to email" the resulting output can be found inside $HOME/brscan
, with $HOME
the home directory of the user running this tool (so /srv/brscan-skey
if started via systemd as a systemwide process).
It is possible to change what action takes place when a given type of scan is selected on the keypad. This is done by editing /opt/brother/scanner/brscan-skey/brscan-skey-0.2.4-0.cfg
. For each variable SCAN_COMMAND
in IMAGE
, OCR
, EMAIL
, FILE
, the command
$ $SCAN_COMMAND $SCANNER_DEVICE $SCANNER_FRIENDLY_NAME
is executed when the corresponding scan type is selected. Note that $SCAN_COMMAND
is not quoted so may specify more than one positional parameter in the final command that is executed. $SCANNER_DEVICE
refers to the name of the device that should be specified to a sane frontend (e.g. via the --device-name
flag when using scanimage
), for example brother3:bus4;dev2
. $SCANNER_FRIENDLY_NAME
is the human-readable name of the scanner.
For Epson hardware
With Epson scanners, you can use "Image Scan! for Linux".
- Install the iscan package
- Install the appropriate iscan-plugin package for your scanner (for example, iscan-plugin-gt-x820AUR for the Epson Perfection Photo V600)
- Add your user to the "scanner" group
- Reboot, so that udev will recognize the device as a scanner and apply appropriate permissions
For network (including Wi-Fi) scanners, install iscan and iscan-plugin-networkAUR, then edit /etc/sane.d/epkowa.conf
and add the line:
net {IP_OF_SCANNER}
For Samsung hardware
For some Samsung MFP printers you may need to edit /etc/sane.d/xerox_mfp.conf
.
example entry:
#Samsung SCX-3200 usb 0x04e8 0x3441
Change the printer model as needed. You can get the idVendor and idProduct code with lsusb
. See this thread.
When plugging in a usb2 printer/scanner to a usb3 interface there is currently a bug in the xhci kernel code that causes the xsane process to hang when the scanner is connected. In the event of a multi-function Samsung printer having an ethernet or wireless interface then it is possible to access the scanner over the network rather than the usb interface by adding in a line to the file /etc/sane.d/xerox_mfp.conf such as
#Samsung scx4500w wireless ip network address tcp xx.xx.xx.xx
where xx.xx.xx.xx is the static ip address of the printer.
Then when xsane starts up you can choose the network tcp access option instead of the usb line, and the scanner will be accessed via the network instead of the usb port and avoid the current usb3 issues.
plustek
Some plustek scanners (noticeably Canoscan ones), require a lock directory. Make sure that /var/lock/sane directory exists, that its permissions are 660, and that it is owned by <user>:scanner. If the directory permissions are wrong, only root will be able to use the scanner. Seems (at least on x86-64) that some programs using libusb (noticeably xsane and kooka) need scanner group rw permissions also for accessing /proc/bus/usb to work for a normal user.
microtek
Some microtek scanners require the sg
module, which should be loaded automatically. If it is not loaded on your system, try to load it manually (see Kernel modules#Configuration for details).
Check if the scanner is recognized, you should get the following output:
scanimage -L
device `microtek2:/dev/sg5' is a Microtek Phantom 636cx / C6 flatbed scanner
Mustek
BearPaw 2400CU
Works with sane-gt68xx (sane-gt68xx-firmware)
Firmware
Firmwares usually have the .bin
extension.
Firstly you need to put the firmware someplace safe, it is recommended to put it in a subdirectory of /usr/share/sane
.
Then you need to tell sane where the firmware is:
- Find the name of the backend for your scanner from the sane supported devices list.
- Open the file
/etc/sane.d/<backend-name>.conf
. - Make sure the firmware entry is uncommented and let the file-path point to where you put the firmware file for your scanner. Be sure that members of the group
scanner
can access the/etc/sane.d/<backend-name>.conf
file.
If the backend of your scanner is not part of the sane package (such as hpaio.conf which is part of hplip), you need to uncomment the relevant entry in /etc/sane.d/dll.d/hplip.
Install a frontend
Many frontends exist for SANE, a non-exhaustive list of which can be found on the sane-project website. Another way to find them is to use pacman
to search the repositories for keywords such as "sane" or "scanner".
- gscan2pdf — A GTK2-based GUI to produce PDFs, TIFFs or DjVus from scanned documents. It is also able to apply OCR in the process using different engines. Depends on a few Perl packages to build of which some are in the AUR as well.
- Simple Scan — A simplified GUI that is intended to be easier to use and better integrated into the GNOME desktop than XSane. It was initially written for Ubuntu and is maintained by Robert Ancell of Canonical Ltd. for GNU/Linux.
- XSane — A full-featured GTK-based frontend looking a bit old but providing extended functionalities.
Network scanning
Sharing your scanner over a network
You can share your scanner with other hosts on your network who use sane, xsane or xsane-enabled Gimp. To set up the server, first indicate which hosts on your network are allowed access.
Change the /etc/sane.d/saned.conf
file to your liking, for example:
# required localhost # allow local subnet 192.168.0.0/24
If you use iptables, insert the nf_conntrack_sane
module to let the firewall track saned connections.
Now start/enable saned.socket
using systemd. Your scanner is now available over the network. For more information, see man saned
.
Accessing your scanner from a remote workstation
You can access your network-enabled scanner from a remote Arch Linux workstation.
First, specify the server's host name or IP address in the /etc/sane.d/net.conf
file:
# static IP address 192.168.0.1 # or host name stratus
Now test your workstation's connection:
$ scanimage -L
The network scanner should now also show up in any front-end.
Scanning over the network with Canon Pixma all-in-one printer/scanners
Find out your printer/scanner's IP address, and add it on a new line to /etc/sane.d/pixma.conf
in the format bjnp://10.0.0.20
.
Sane should now find your device. For more details refer to man sane-pixma
.
Scanning over the network with HP all-in-one printer/scanner/faxes
Configure it via:
$ hp-setup <printer ip>
Troubleshooting
Invalid argument
If you get an "Invalid argument" error with xsane or another sane front-end, this could be caused by one of the following reasons:
Missing firmware file
No firmware file was provided for the used scanner (see above for details).
Wrong firmware file permissions
The permissions for the used firmware file are wrong. Correct them using
# chown root:scanner /usr/share/sane/SCANNER_MODEL/FIRMWARE_FILE # chmod ug+r /usr/share/sane/SCANNER_MODEL/FIRMWARE_FILE
Multiple backends claim scanner
It may happen, that multiple backends support (or pretend to support) your scanner, and sane chooses one that doesn't do after all (the scanner won't be displayed by scanimage -L then). This has happend with older Epson scanners and the epson2
resp. epson
backends. In this case, the solution is to comment out the unwanted backend in /etc/sane.d/dll.conf
. In the Epson case, that would be to change
epson2 #epson
to
#epson2 epson
USB 3.0
Attaching a scanner to an USB 3.0 port can also can also cause this error message. This problem is sometimes accompanied by error messages like WARN Event TRB for slot 1 ep 10 with no TDs queued?
or ep 0x85 - rounding interval to 512 microframes, ep desc says 800 microframes
in the kernel log. The only known solution is using a USB 2.0 port (or hub) at the moment.
Slow startup
If you encounter slow startup issue (e.g. xsane
or scanimage -L
take a lot to find scanner) it may be that more than one driver supporting it is available.
Have a look at /etc/sane.d/dll.conf
and try commenting out one (e.g. you may have epson, epson2 and epkowa enabled at the same time, try leaving only epson or epkowa uncommented)
You can also try to comment out "net" driver, if there are no network scanners.
Permission problem
If you see your scanner only when running lsusb
(as root), you might get it working by adding your user to scanner
and/or lp
group.
# gpasswd -a username scanner # gpasswd -a username lp
This is reported to work on HP all-in-one models (e.g., PSC 1315 and PSC 2355).
You can also try to change permissions of usb device but this is not recommended, a better solution is to fix the Udev rules so that your scanner is recognized.
Example:
First, as root, check connected usb devices with lsusb
:
#Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub #Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub #Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub #Bus 003 Device 003: ID 04d9:1603 Holtek Semiconductor, Inc. #Bus 003 Device 002: ID 04fc:0538 Sunplus Technology Co., Ltd #Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub #Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub #Bus 001 Device 006: ID 03f0:2504 Hewlett-Packard #Bus 001 Device 002: ID 046d:0802 Logitech, Inc. Webcam C200 #Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
In our example we see scanner - 'Bus 001 Device 006: ID 03f0:2504 Hewlett-Packard'
Now edit /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/49-sane.rules
and look for the first part of the ID number found previously and check if there is a line that also reports the second part of the number (model numer), in this example 2504. If not found change or copy a line and enter the idVendor and idProduct of your scanner, in this example it would be:
# Hewlett-Packard ScanJet 4100C ATTRS{idVendor}=="03f0", ATTRS{idProduct}=="2504", MODE="0664", GROUP="scanner", ENV{libsane_matched}="yes"
Save the file, plug out and back in your scanner and the file permissions should be now correct.
Another tip, is that you can add your device (scanner) in backend file:
Add 'usb 0x03f0 0x2504' to /etc/sane.d/hp4200.conf
so it looks like this:
# # Configuration file for the hp4200 backend # # # HP4200 #usb 0x03f0 0x0105 usb 0x03f0 0x2504
Epson Perfection 1270
For Epson Perfection 1270, you also need a firmware named esfw3e.bin
. It can be obtained by installing the Windows driver.
Modify the configuration file of the snapscan backend, /etc/sane.d/snapscan.conf
. Change the firmware path line with yours:
# Change to the fully qualified filename of your firmware file, if # firmware upload is needed by the scanner firmware /mnt/mydata/Backups/firmware/esfw3e.bin
And add the following line in the end or anywhere you like
# Epson Perfection 1270 usb 0x04b8 0x0120
You can get such code information (usb 0x04b8 0x0120
) by sane-find-scanner command.
Also add such information lines to /etc/hotplug/usb/libsane.usermap
to setup your privilege, like:
# Epson Perfection 1270 libusbscanner 0x0003 0x04b8 0x0120 0x0000 0x0000 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000
Replug scanner, you have a working Epson Perfection 1270 now.
- To prevent
scanimage: sane_start: Error during device I/O
and hangup of the scanner itself, when trying to scan with ADF (automatic document feed) enabled, I had to remove or comment out all Backends from/etc/sane.d/dll.conf
and instead just add this to the file:snapscan
Finally. If you still get the Error I/O
messages try to check the transportation lock of the scanner. It is on the bottom of the scanner. It must be opened.
Scanning fails or hangs with scanner plugged on USB3 (xhci) port
Description of the problem: the scanner is detected while running lsusb
or scanimage -L
and maybe even the GUI apps, however when you attempt to scan, on first try the scanner starts but shortly after hangs or freezes, and later tries fails.
With scanimage --test
the error message is:
scanimage: open of device <scanner_device> failed: Error during device I/O
You may also get this error logged while attempting to scan:
kernel: usb 1-2: new high-speed USB device number 8 using xhci_hcd kernel: WARNING! power/level is deprecated; use power/control instead
The bug is corrected on GIT, and so you may want to install sane-gitAUR.
With the current stable package, you may want to try (if your BIOS allows it): In the UEFI/BIOS change the setting under USB configuration, xhci pre-boot mode from enabled to disabled.
(Canon) Cannot read scanner make & model
If you have a Canon multi function printer/scanner and get an error message of the following kind:
Cannot read mac address, skipping this scanner Cannot read scanner make & model: bjnp://
and the scanner refuses to connect, then it may be because you have a newer scanner using the mfnp, and not the bjnp protocol. Unfortunately, this scanner may not be supported (yet) by the current sane version. However, you can install sane-gitAUR to get a version supporting mfnp reasonably well. (And make sure that the scanner is in "remote" scanning mode - otherwise it will not communicate it's scanning capabilities over the network at all)