hplip fails on mint20 and Kubuntu 20.04

[Gary H]

HPLIP with HP Office Jet Pro 8620 works ok /w Mint 19.3
HPLIP Ver 3.17.10
Device Manager Version 15.0 (QT4)

HPLIP with same hardware fails /w Mint 20 or Kubuntu 20.04.
HPLIP Ver 3.20.3
Device Manager Version 15.0 (QT4)

HPLIP fails with a device communication error (5012).

hp-doctor not available on Linux.

[Brian (b6ian)]

I have the same issue. After upgrading to Linux Mint 20, I could not scan from my printer which worked on Linux Mint 19.3. I also noticed Linux Mint 20 is not yet supported, so I couldn't install by downloading from the HPLIP website. In the end, I had to downgrade back to Linux Mint 19.3 to get it to work again. My printer is an HP Color LaserJet MFP281fdw.

[shivani mandora (shivani1708)]

Hi ,

Ubuntu 20.04 is supported with few limitations in HPLIP. Hence you are seeing device busy or unplugged error.
Also Linux Mint 20 is yet not supported by HPLIP but since it is based on ubuntu 20 we might get similar issue on that also.We are working on it. We will update you for the same.

Could you please refer below link for your bug:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cups/+bug/1879206

You can print via network instead of USB.

[Bernard Decock (decockbernard)]

Same problem with Linux Mint20 and printer/scanner hp3639. Neither printer nor scanner can be used. Printing via network, doesn't work either.

[Bernard Decock (decockbernard)]

After sudo apt purge ippusbxd en rebooting I was able to use the printer and the scanner

[Gary H (gh4mint)]

HP Setup Guide does NOT provide info on how to setup printer/scanner to work on network.

[Andrew Laughton (laughton-andrew)]

Hplip 3.20.x depends on python-qt4, but python-qt5 is installed with Ubuntu 20.04, and probably Mint 19.3
Installing python-qt4 is not possible with python-qt5 installed.
Removing python-qt5 is not an option as this will remove a lot of other stuff, including the desktop with Kubuntu.

Mark Reid had the same problem and discovered that he was running python 2.7.
Fixed by adding "alias python='/usr/bin/python3'" to his ~/.bash_aliases file.
This achieved an update to python 3.x
He then fixed it by completely removing everything from hplip, including all the folders, and installing "sudo pip3 install pyqt5.sip".

I have had no joy.

hplip 3.20.3, installed with Ubuntu 20.04, also installs a file called "/usr/bin/hp-doctor", which spits out a few errors that might be helpful.

My printer works, but the scanner comes up with device I/O error, presumably when things silently fail.

[Gary H (gh4mint)]

Installed Kubuntu 20.10 Beta and found that the OS cannot communicate with my HP Office Jet 8620.
added HPLIP Gui and had the same problem.
Went back to Mint 19.3 and found all works ok.
Thus it is not a hardware problem, but a software problem /w Kubuntu 20.*