Anyone here got Scan to Desktop aka Scan to file feature working on a Brother network printer running, or know what needs to be done for it to work?
I have brscan4 installed and the proprietary drivers for the printer.
Scanning and printing from PC works great, I just need it to work the other way around: pressing scan on my printer should send the file to PC, but it doesn’t even start scanning, instead hangs at Connecting to PC.
The printer is a Brother 1622WE
I’ve installed brscan-skey from AUR, and followed the advice on the AUR page:
added brscan-skey user to group lp and
created a brscan directory in my home folder and
set brscan-skey as owner
route specific port (54925) to my pc in my router (rule to linux firewall was added by brscan-skey install)
The service is running, I can see firewall rules have being added for this, but pressing the scan to pc button on the scanner does nothing, just stays at “Connecting to PC”.
No expert here on this, but has Brother changed from using Samba to access the network from the printer? Well, CIFS, but Samba in practice. There was quite a bit of setup from the web interface to the printer to get it going as well - when I bothered using network access to the printer. Now I just try to ssh around when I need to…
Now that’s a sane suggestion I didn’t think about
I disabled the firewall in my router and also the Linux firewall (through gufw). And indeed the scanner was able to connect to the PC. 15 sec delay, mind you, but still.
I re-enabled the Linux firewall and it stopped working again. for some reason the rules weren’t saved. I had to add them again. Not sure what I did wrong the first time.
Anyway the whole thing is a disappointment. The wait time till the initial scan is bigger than going back to the PC and clicking scan in gscan2pdf.
My previous inkjet Brother printer/scanner/copier/fax had the scan to PC feature. I only used it once in a blue moon. I have this thing about unnecessary daemons running in the background for no reason, so I never started brscan-skey at boot up. When I actually wanted to use this, I would go to the printer, try to start the scan, and utter the famous “Why isn’t this working, it used to work!” By the time I remembered to start brscan-key, then went to the PC and started it, then went back to the printer to re-start the scan, it just wasn’t worth it. It was faster to put what I wanted scanned on the printer, start simple scan, and be done with it.
My current Laser Brother printer/scanner/copier doesn’t have this feature and I don’t miss it a bit, and I don’t miss the fax either.
By the time I remembered to start brscan-key, then went to the PC and started it, then went back to the printer to re-start the scan, it just wasn’t worth it. It was faster to put what I wanted scanned on the printer, start simple scan, and be done with it.