Error: failed to initialize HAL! Caused by HP ScanJet 4100C (USB)

[Pascal de Bruijn]

After connecting my HP ScanJet 4100C (USB) to my Ubuntu system, GNOME would hang
for a while after doing a GDM login. After one or two minutes i'd get a small
popup saying "Error failed to initialize HAL!".

After disconnecting (and rebooting the system) the HP ScanJet 4100C, everything
was fine again.

When I start my system and login without the HP ScanJet 4100C connected HAL
keeps working fine. And if I connect the HP ScanJet 4100C after I have logged
in, xsane properly detects the scanner, and the scanner works like a charm.

It's probably related to: https://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=10147

Anyway it's very inconvenient to have to unplug/plug the scanner each time I login.

[Pascal de Bruijn (pmjdebruijn)]

Created an attachment (id=2832)
lsusb -v

Ran the lsusb -v on my system...

[Pascal de Bruijn (pmjdebruijn)]

Created an attachment (id=2833)
my system syslog

This is my systems syslog, it shows some interesting stuff:

Jun 25 14:05:42 localhost kernel: usb 1-2: hald timed out on ep0in

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Created an attachment (id=2833) [edit]
> my system syslog
>
> This is my systems syslog, it shows some interesting stuff:
>
> Jun 25 14:05:42 localhost kernel: usb 1-2: hald timed out on ep0in

We had a lot of similar bug reports on hal (#9864, #8585, #9180). Breezy's hal
has a new architecture that does not block any more when a particular device
does not respond. Do you have the chance to try out Breezy?

[Pascal de Bruijn (pmjdebruijn)]

(In reply to comment #3)
> (In reply to comment #2)
> > Created an attachment (id=2833) [edit] [edit]
> > my system syslog
> >
> > This is my systems syslog, it shows some interesting stuff:
> >
> > Jun 25 14:05:42 localhost kernel: usb 1-2: hald timed out on ep0in
>
> We had a lot of similar bug reports on hal (#9864, #8585, #9180). Breezy's hal
> has a new architecture that does not block any more when a particular device
> does not respond. Do you have the chance to try out Breezy?

Aha, thanks for your reply...

Anyway I'm downloading now, though assuming 5.10-Colony-1 will fix my issue, is
there
any chance of getting this version of dbus/hal backported to Hoary?

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> (In reply to comment #3)
> > (In reply to comment #2)
> > > Created an attachment (id=2833) [edit] [edit] [edit]
> > > my system syslog
> > >
> > > This is my systems syslog, it shows some interesting stuff:
> > >
> > > Jun 25 14:05:42 localhost kernel: usb 1-2: hald timed out on ep0in
> >
> > We had a lot of similar bug reports on hal (#9864, #8585, #9180). Breezy's hal
> > has a new architecture that does not block any more when a particular device
> > does not respond. Do you have the chance to try out Breezy?
>
> Aha, thanks for your reply...
>
> Anyway I'm downloading now, though assuming 5.10-Colony-1 will fix my issue, is
> there
> any chance of getting this version of dbus/hal backported to Hoary?

No way, it's not a simple fix, but a completely new architecture, which alone
prohibits a hoary update. Even more, the new has a new API thus it depends on a
whole lot of newer versions of other software.

I leave that open as NEEDINFO until you could test the Breezy version. However,
Colony-1 is pretty old already, but it should be enough to fix your bug (don't
upgrade your production system to it, rather install breezy in a spare
partition, or just use the live CD).

[Pascal de Bruijn (pmjdebruijn)]

Created an attachment (id=2889)
Ubunty Breezy Colony 2 dmesg

I just tried my HP ScanJet 4100C on a Ubuntu Breezy Colony 2 installation.
GNOME started as it should. However XSane no longer finds my scanner. After
some digging this turned up in my dmesg:

[4294771.297000] usb 2-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address
10
[4294771.707000] usb 2-2: device not accepting address 10, error -71

[Pascal de Bruijn (pmjdebruijn)]

Note, that 'lsusb' also didn't show the scanner.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Ok, so at least the new hal does not hang any more.

(In reply to comment #6)
> [4294771.297000] usb 2-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address
> 10
> [4294771.707000] usb 2-2: device not accepting address 10, error -71

Does the scanner actually work when you plug it in after logging in?

[Pascal de Bruijn (pmjdebruijn)]

Well, it did in Hoary...

But in Breezy Colony 2 it didn't, somehow it didn't even show up in lsusb.

Regards,
Pascal de Bruijn

[Pascal de Bruijn (pmjdebruijn)]

When a live-cd of colony 3 becomes available, I can test if the scanner works,
at my aunts place...

[Jon Leighton (jonleighton)]

I get this same bug too. I have a HP Deskjet 950C -- but it's not connected via
USB. It happens intermittently -- not all the time, and if I wait a while after
the error message, I'm able to use GNOME. dmesg says this:

usb 1-2.4: epson timed out on ep0in
eth0: no IPv6 routers present
usb 1-2.4: epson timed out on ep0in
lp0: ECP mode
usb 1-2.4: hald timed out on ep0in
usb 1-2.4: hald timed out on ep0in
usb 1-2.4: canon timed out on ep0in
usb 1-2.4: canon timed out on ep0in
usb 1-2.4: hald timed out on ep0in
usb 1-2.4: hald timed out on ep0in
usb 1-2.4: hald timed out on ep0in
usb 1-2.4: hald timed out on ep0in
usb 1-2.4: hald timed out on ep0in
usb 1-2.4: hald timed out on ep0in
usb 1-2.4: hald timed out on ep0in
usb 1-2.4: hald timed out on ep0in
usb 1-2.4: hald timed out on ep0in
usb 1-2.4: hald timed out on ep0in
usb 1-2.4: hald timed out on ep0in
usb 1-2.4: hald timed out on ep0in
usb 1-2.4: hald timed out on ep0in
usb 1-2.4: hald timed out on ep0in
usb 1-2.4: hald timed out on ep0in

When I was using Gentoo (I just recently switched to Ubuntu), I didn't have this
problem, but cupsd would take f'n ages (like 30 seconds or something). On Gentoo
I didn't get the hald errors, but I got the exact same errors about "canon" and
"epson". I believe I narrowed the problem down to it being those timeouts that
made cupsd take so long to start, but got no further. They seem a bit strange,
especially as I don't have any Canon or Epson hardware.

I can provide additional info if required -- it would be really nice to get this
one fixed!

[Jon Leighton (jonleighton)]

Why has <email address hidden> changed the severity to normal? It's, er, quite major for
me, and -- I would expect -- anyone else affected.

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HelpingWithBugs for information about bug severity
in Ubuntu.

[Jon Leighton (jonleighton)]

IMO this comes under "Has a severe impact on a small portion of Ubuntu users
(estimated)"

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

(In reply to comment #14)
> IMO this comes under "Has a severe impact on a small portion of Ubuntu users
> (estimated)"

You're correct; I confused this with a different scanner bug (which only
affected use of the scanner).

Have you tested with Breezy?

[Jon Leighton (jonleighton)]

(In reply to comment #15)
> (In reply to comment #14)
> > IMO this comes under "Has a severe impact on a small portion of Ubuntu users
> > (estimated)"
>
> You're correct; I confused this with a different scanner bug (which only
> affected use of the scanner).
>
> Have you tested with Breezy?

No. I'm willing to try on a LiveCD, but I don't want to install it (I'd do it
alongside Hoary but I don't have the disk space). Will that be sufficient?

It might be hard to see whether it happens as the problem doesn't occur 100% of
the time. I should hopefully get time to test it within a week.

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

*** Bug 16446 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

Yes, that would be helpful. Try Colony 3:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/breezy/colony-3/

[Jon Leighton (jonleighton)]

(In reply to comment #18)
> Yes, that would be helpful. Try Colony 3:
> http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/breezy/colony-3/

I have done.

Before, when I booted, the GNOME panel would fail to respond, then I'd get an
error message, then I'd have to wait, and then it would all finish loading up.

I also discovered if I wait between booting the computer and logging in (say, a
minute or so), then it works fine.

With Breezy, there was no error message, but the GNOME panel was still
unresponsive and still didn't load for a while. So I guess the message is gone
but the error still exists.

[Jon Leighton (jonleighton)]

Can we change the summary to "Error: failed to initialize HAL! Caused by HP
ScanJet range" please? (That's clearly more accurate)

[Pascal de Bruijn (pmjdebruijn)]

I've just tried the Ubuntu Colony 4 LiveCD at my aunts place. GNOME start fine.

Thought the scanner doesn't work. XSane just tells me it can't find the scanner.
(It does show up in 'lsusb').
Somehow, if I detach the scanner en then replug it in to the usb port, and start
XSane it ussually does find the scanner. Then if I try to scan, sometimes the scan
fails, and sometimes it works, it seems that failures only happen at the beginning,
once the scanner works, it keeps working until a reboot.

With 'fails', I mean either of these messsages (from XSane):
Failed to start scanner: End of file reached
Failed to start scanner: Error during device I/O

I get no errors in the 'dmesg'.

The only thing I can thing of this far, is that under Windows the scanner needs
to 'warmup', sane doesn't seem to take that into account, but I could be mistaken.

[Ben Collins (ben-collins)]

Since with Colony 4 Gnome starts fine, I bringing this back down to just normal severity. Keeping at P2, since
I do want to address this before breezy release.

[Pascal de Bruijn (pmjdebruijn)]

Created an attachment (id=4366)
sane_hp error log

[Pascal de Bruijn (pmjdebruijn)]

This error log was too large to attach, so it can be found here:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~bruijn9/scanjet/hp4.err.gz

all of them are there:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~bruijn9/scanjet/

[Pascal de Bruijn (pmjdebruijn)]

I've been in contact with Peter Kirchgessner (the author of the sane_hp
backend), note I've only pasted the important part, it's not the full email:

>>Hi Pascal,
>>
>>here is what I can see from the logfiles:
>>
>>hp1: USB might have found the device. But there is a message "Access to
>>resource has been denied". No idea. Can not be solved/work around in the
>>hp-backend.
>>hp2: no problems
>>hp4: There was one problem when reading the properties of the image to
>>scan. It got an 'end of file error' from USB. At this place it could be
>>tried to get the required information multiple times.

The logs files were collected on Ubuntu Breezy Colony 5.

[Ben Collins (ben-collins)]

If possible, please upgrade to Dapper's 2.6.15-7 kernel. If you do not want to
upgrade to Dapper, then you can also wait for the Dapper Flight 2 CD's, which
are due out within the next few days.

Let me know if this bug still exists with this kernel.

[Jon Leighton (jonleighton)]

It doesn't seem that I'm experiencing any traces of this problem anymore on
Ubuntu Breezy. Yay :)

[Ben Collins (ben-collins)]

(In reply to comment #27)
> It doesn't seem that I'm experiencing any traces of this problem anymore on
> Ubuntu Breezy. Yay :)

Excellent! Closing this bug.

[rusivi2 (rusivi2-deactivatedaccount)]

Thank you for posting this bug.

Dapper is in End of Life status. Please update and repost detailed error report.

[JC Hulce (soaringsky)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu. The version of Ubuntu referenced in this issue has reached end of life, and the issue is fixed in newer versions of Ubuntu.
Please see this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases