Brother MFC-6490CW Scanner problems

[Juan R. de Silva]

On Thu, 08 May 2014 07:09:26 -0500, Linda wrote:

> On 05/07/2014 11:09 PM, Juan R. de Silva wrote:
>> On Wed, 07 May 2014 17:26:35 -0500, Linda wrote:
>>
>>> I'm setting up a new machine with 12.04 LTS stable.  I got the Brother
>>> MFC-6490CW to work as a printer over the network but it will not work
>>> as a scanner over the network.  I tired all of the possible solutions
>>> I found on line adding users to groups etc but both Xsane and simple
>>> scan fail. In frustration I removed the network scanner with
>>> brscan3config and tried plugging it in with a usb cord. If I do this
>>> Xsane gives me a Failed to start scanner:Invalid argument message but
>>> if you select the scan button again it works. Simple scan gives Failed
>>> to scan, unable to start scan message. Does anyone have any ideas? I
>>> could live with having it plugged in as a usb scanner but would like
>>> to get it working without the error message.
>>>                                      Thanks
>>>                                       Linda
>> I have MFC-7064DN and never had any problems with it. Yours looks quite
>> similar.
>>
>> What drivers did you use? Did you get drivers for your MFC from Brother
>> web site? Did you follow Brother installation instructions to the
>> letter?
>>
>> If you did, you should run the following command in terminal after you
>> installed the scanner driver:
>>
>> brsaneconfigX -a name=[scanner_name (choose some)] model=MFC6490CW ip=
>> [give_its_ip_addres_here]
>>
>> I had to use brsaneconfig4, you mentioned brsaneconfig3. You know
>> better what is suitable for your scanner.
>>
>>
> Yes I got the drivers from the Brothers site and followed the
> instructions. The frustrating part is I had it working without a problem
> on the previous machine. I think I'll try removing all the sane packages
> and the scanner drivers and start from scratch
>                  Linda

Sorry, I've forgotten completely...  

Yes, after upgrading from Ubuntu 12.04 to 14.04 my scanner did stopped 
working all at a sudden. I get to the Brother web site and found that 
they upgraded the scanner driver to a new version. 

I uninstalled the old driver following Brother old instructions, which I 
kept saved locally, and then installed the new driver for the scanner. It 
did not work first. Then I found (again in old driver install 
instructions) the command I mentioned to you in my previous post, run it, 
and it worked as a charm.

I'm quite happy to preserve old drivers install instructions, since 
Brother new Linux support is awful and instructions are close to none 
exist.

Hope this would help.