[Bug 1728012] [NEW] Many 3rd party scanner drivers are broken by a sane change

[Launchpad Bug Tracker]

You have been subscribed to a public bug by Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj):

To the sponsor: Please upload to bionic using the attached sane-
backends_lp1728012_bionic.debdiff.

[Impact]

 * Starting with Ubuntu 17.10, Ubuntu changed the directory where sane
dll looks for third party drivers. This configuration effectively broke
backward compatibility for all existing third-party drivers.

 * A large swath of these third party drivers (most of them) are no
longer supported by the OEM, so maintaining compatibility is important.

 * No open source replacement drivers are currently available, nor does
the community have the resources to easily replace them.

 * This bug represents a substantial portion of the scanners in use.

Scanners known to be affected include, but are not limited to:

 - Brother Scanners (all Brother scanners before brscan4)
  - DCP-145C
  - DCP-163C
  - DCP-165C
  - DCP-167C
  - DCP-185C
  - DCP-195C
  - DCP-197C
  - DCP-365CN
  - DCP-373CW
  - DCP-375CW
  - DCP-377CW
  - DCP-383C
  - DCP-385C
  - DCP-387C
  - DCP-395CN
  - DCP-585CW
  - DCP-6690CW
  - DCP-7030
  - DCP-7040
  - DCP-7045N
  - DCP-8070D
  - DCP-8080DN
  - DCP-8085DN
  - DCP-9010CN
  - DCP-9040CN
  - DCP-9042CDN
  - DCP-9045CDN
  - DCP-J125
  - DCP-J315W
  - DCP-J515W
  - DCP-J715W
  - MFC-250C
  - MFC-255CW
  - MFC-257CW
  - MFC-290C
  - MFC-295CN
  - MFC-297C
  - MFC-490CW
  - MFC-495CW
  - MFC-5490CN
  - MFC-5890CN
  - MFC-5895CW
  - MFC-6490CW
  - MFC-6890CDW
  - MFC-7320
  - MFC-7340
  - MFC-7345N
  - MFC-7440N
  - MFC-7450
  - MFC-7840N
  - MFC-7840W
  - MFC-790CW
  - MFC-795CW
  - MFC-8370DN
  - MFC-8380DN
  - MFC-8480DN
  - MFC-8510DN
  - MFC-8680DN
  - MFC-8880DN
  - MFC-8890DW
  - MFC-9010CN
  - MFC-9120CN
  - MFC-9320CW
  - MFC-9440CN
  - MFC-9450CDN
  - MFC-9840CDW
  - MFC-990CW
  - MFC-J220
  - MFC-J265W
  - MFC-J270W
  - MFC-J410
  - MFC-J410W
  - MFC-J415W
  - MFC-J615W
  - MFC-J630W

 - Dell MFP Laser Printer 1135n

 - Epson Scanners
  - All scanners supported by the libsane-epk driver
  - All scanners supported by the iscan driver
  - Epson Perfection V10
  - Epson Perfection V1000
  - Epson WorkForce GT-1500
  - Epson Perfection V33

 - Samsung M2070

 - Xerox Workcentre 3225

 * This was working in the 17.04 release.  18.04 is an LTS release, so
backporting is warranted for the 18.04 release.

[Test Case]

 * Following the standard installation procedures for any of the
affected scanner drivers results in the driver files being installed to
/usr/lib/sane/, and sane looking for them in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-
gnu/sane.  When xsane is run, the scanner is not found.

* Install the libsane1, libsane-common and sane-utils packages from
bionic-proposed and confirm that it now finds drivers in /usr/lib/sane.

[Regression Potential]

 * The proposed change is based on an upstream commit, and the patch is
functional and stable in both 19.04 and 19.10. Low regression risk.

[Other Info]
 * Third party sane drivers in previous version of sane were located under /usr/lib/sane/, however, the current version of sane on Ubuntu only looks for 64 bit drivers under the /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/sane directory. /usr/lib64 and /usr/lib64/sane are other directories old drivers are known to install files to.

* The addition of symlinks alone does not appear to fix this issue,
though it may make the scanner detectable. Changes to udev rules are
also needed to allow proper communications to the scanners. A selection
of workarounds, including working (though not ideal) udev rules for a
number of scanners has been posted to the sane troubleshooting guide:
help.ubuntu.com/community/sane_Troubleshooting#The_symlink_and_udev_tricks

** Affects: sane-backends (Ubuntu)
     Importance: High
         Status: Fix Released

** Affects: sane-backends (Ubuntu Bionic)
     Importance: High
     Assignee: Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)
         Status: In Progress

** Affects: sane-backends (Debian)
     Importance: Unknown
         Status: Fix Released


** Tags: amd64 apport-bug bionic patch regression-release
-- 
Many 3rd party scanner drivers are broken by a sane change
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1728012
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