xsane can only find scanner as root

[wneumann]

Xsane was working fine until a recent update (I don't know what update hurt it, updated too much since I last used the scanner).

Xsane and scanimage can only find the scanner as root. Xsane gives dire warnings about the danger of running it as root.

I found advice to do "chmod 664 /proc/bus/usb/001/005" (my scanner is on Bus 001 Device 005)
but that didn't help xsane (it did help scanimage).

If I go whole hog with "chmod 666 /proc/bus/usb/001/005", then xsane is fine. Does anyone know a reason why not to do this?

[marsmutant]

Hello wneumann,

I've got a problem that looks very similar to yours. After updating my system via "yum update" my scanner (Mustek ScanExpress 1200 UB Plus) is "out of order".
If I boot my system with the previous kernel (2.6.21-1.3228), the scanner works as usual. I think the new kernel (2.6.22.1-27) has some problems to create the necessary devices in /dev. The previous kernel (2.6.21-1.3228) creates some files in /dev (e.g. /dev/scanner-..., /dev/bus/usb/001/003 (the usb-port where my scanner is plugged in)).
Perhaps the "brandnew" kernel (2.6.22.1-33) released at 27-Jul-2007 04:39 is the solution ?? I'll try it at the weekend.

[wneumann]

I have same setup on a different machine and don't have the problem there. I don't know why. Anyway, on the machine that has problems I've written a script "chmod-scanner" that gets run automatically from a login file:

#!/bin/sh

canon=`sudo /sbin/lsusb |grep Canon`
bus=`echo $canon| sed -e s/Bus\ // -e s/\ Device.\*//`
device=`echo $canon| sed -e s/Bus.\*Device\ // -e s/\:.\*//`
sudo chmod 666 /proc/bus/usb/$bus/$device

It does the trick. If your scanner isn't a Canon do lsusb to find a convenient other word to search for to grab the scanner line.

[marsmutant]

OK, this is a workaround that will fix the problem (like many other possible workarounds e.g. "chmod 666 /proc/bus/usb/00x/00y" in "/etc/rc.d/rc.local" if your device is always attached to the same USB-port (xy), ...). But the main problem is a kernel bug. After updating my kernel from version 2.6.22.1-27 to 2.6.22.1-33 my scanner works again without any additional actions.
By the way, with version 2.6.22.1-33 I had a problem with one of my USB-Sticks (recognized as device sdb1, but no automount). All my other devices (USB-HD, MP3-Player, USB-Camera, some USB-Sticks) were running without problems. So, up to the next kernel release I will use the kernel 2.6.21-1.3228. With it I can use all my USB-devices without any manual configuration.

[gastonv]

Hello,
I have a similar problem with a LifeTec LT9350 (Mustek 1200CP clone) scanner.
In the past I could start xsane without root, but from beginning september I only can start it in root.
The result is that the scanned files will be stored as root root, and that I can not see or use them as user

[gastonv@pandora1 ~]$ ls -l out0002.png
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12657 nov 29 18:43 out0002.png

Some config files:
[code][gastonv@pandora1 ~]$ cat /etc/sane.d/dll.conf
...
mustek_pp
...
[code]
and:

[gastonv@pandora1 ~]$ cat /etc/sane.d/mustek_pp.conf
...
# Example for a LifeTec LT9350 (Mustek 1200CP clone):
    scanner LT9350 * cis1200
    option top_adjust 0
    option bw 127

I am working in Fedora Core 6.

[gastonv@pandora1 ~]$ uname -a
Linux pandora1 2.6.22.9-61.fc6 #1 SMP Thu Sep 27 18:48:03 EDT 2007 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux

Please what can be the reason why xsane doesn't work any more without root?
Many thanks in advance for helping,
Gaston Verhulst

[pitonyak]

Originally Posted by wneumann

I have same setup on a different machine and don't have the problem there. I don't know why. Anyway, on the machine that has problems I've written a script "chmod-scanner" that gets run automatically from a login file:

#!/bin/sh

canon=`sudo /sbin/lsusb |grep Canon`
bus=`echo $canon| sed -e s/Bus\ // -e s/\ Device.\*//`
device=`echo $canon| sed -e s/Bus.\*Device\ // -e s/\:.\*//`
sudo chmod 666 /proc/bus/usb/$bus/$device

It does the trick. If your scanner isn't a Canon do lsusb to find a convenient other word to search for to grab the scanner line.

I liked your code so much, that I stole it...

#!/bin/sh

# Set scanner vendor and product code as returned by lsusb.
scandevice=04b8:0122

scanner=`sudo /sbin/lsusb -d $scandevice`
bus=`echo $scanner| sed -e s/Bus\ // -e s/\ Device.\*//`
device=`echo $scanner| sed -e s/Bus.\*Device\ // -e s/\:.\*//`
if [ "$bus" = "" ] | [ "$device" = "" ]
then
  echo "Unable to find scanner with vendor:product = $scandevice"
  exit 1
fi
sudo chmod 666 /proc/bus/usb/$bus/$device
echo "Set access for $scandevice at /proc/bus/usb/$bus/$device"

This code uses the vendor and product ID as returned by lsusb. There should be no problem with multiple devices unless they are the same device type (as in two scanners of the same type). I figured that if I was going to steal the code, I needed to give back.

[incident41]

Lovely, this still works for my HP All-In-One c4680 printer/scanner under Fedora 13.

Thanks !

--alessandro