xsane won't start unless run as root (Epson Perfection 1240)

[Bryce Harrington]

Binary package hint: xsane

lsusb:
Bus 002 Device 005: ID 04b8:010b Seiko Epson Corp. Perfection 1240
xsane:
  Installed: 0.995-1ubuntu1
libsane:
  Installed: 1.0.19-1ubuntu3

This scanner worked fine on Gutsy, but after upgrading to Hardy it runs and displays "scanning for devices" followed by a "no devices available" error. When run as sudo or via gksu, it displays a warning about running as root, but otherwise comes up and works fine.

I see there are numerous other bug reports with similar symptoms, but decided to post a new one since this doesn't match up 100% to the other reports. Here are things I've already checked:

  * chown root -R ~/.sane
  * Removing ~/.sane
  * Power cycling the device, with or without ~/.sane
  * Adding "usb 0x04b8 0x010b" to /etc/sane/epson.conf
  * chmod a+rw /dev/usbdev*

Anyway, I've worked around it by changing the XSane menu entry's command to 'gksu xsane', but due to the running-as-root warning I'm gathering that's a less than optimal solution in general.

Several bugs seem close to this one, but differ in one aspect or another:
37499 - Nigh identical, except has been around since Dapper and was resolved by adding a line to /etc/sane/epson.conf. My issue only started from Hardy, and is not resolved by adding the usb ID to that file.
209293 - Got an 'Input/Output' error instead of 'No devices found'
47174 - No mention of error dialog

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

That model is in 20-libsane.fdi, so sane itself knows about it. Can you please plug in the scanner, and attach the output of "lshal"? does "ck-list-sessions" have a "is-local = TRUE" session for you?

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Yes:

$ ck-list-sessions
Session1:
 uid = '1000'
 realname = 'Bryce Harrington,,,'
 seat = 'Seat1'
 session-type = ''
 active = TRUE
 x11-display = ':0'
 x11-display-device = '/dev/tty7'
 display-device = ''
 remote-host-name = ''
 is-local = TRUE
 on-since = '2008-04-03T21:20:15Z'

[Brett Alton (brett-alton-deactivatedaccount)]

This happens as well with my Brother MFC-8440. When I run it as root however, it 'xsane' seems to be stuck in a loop and continually scans. 'flegita' does the same...

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

lshal looks fine, the scanner has the necessary capabilities and properties. Can you please do a hal debug output, as described on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingHal and attach the log here? Something seems to go wrong with adding the ACL to the scanner device.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

Bryce, can you still reproduce and provide the debug info Martin asked for? Otherwise we can probably close this bug.

Thanks!

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Hm, this doesn't look bad actually. After plugging in the scanner, can you please give me the output of

  lsusb

and

  getfacl /dev/bus/usb/002/003

(or whatever your scanner's bus/device number is at that time, same as in lsusb)?

Thanks!

[Jens (jens-launchpad-net)]

Same problem here, using an Epson 2400 Perfection Photo flatbet scanner. Weird - I remember it working once (xsane started up correctly) before applying online updates. Can this be a bug introduced by an online update?

lsusb finds it (connected to a USB hub):
    Bus 004 Device 008: ID 04b8:011b Seiko Epson Corp. Perfection 2400 Photo

sane-find-scanner finds it:
    found USB scanner (vendor=0x04b8, product=0x011b) at libusb:004:008

but xsane does not. 'sudo xsane' works fine however. "lshal" entry:

udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_4b8_11b_noserial'
  info.bus = 'usb_device' (string)
  info.linux.driver = 'usb' (string)
  info.parent = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_4b4_6560_noserial' (string)
  info.product = 'Perfection 2400 Photo' (string)
  info.subsystem = 'usb_device' (string)
  info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_4b8_11b_noserial' (string)
  info.vendor = 'Seiko Epson Corp.' (string)
  linux.device_file = '/dev/bus/usb/004/008' (string)
  linux.hotplug_type = 2 (0x2) (int)
  linux.subsystem = 'usb' (string)
  linux.sysfs_path = '/sys/devices/pci0001:10/0001:10:1b.2/usb4/4-2/4-2.3' (string)
  usb_device.bus_number = 4 (0x4) (int)
  usb_device.can_wake_up = false (bool)
  usb_device.configuration_value = 1 (0x1) (int)
  usb_device.device_class = 255 (0xff) (int)
  usb_device.device_protocol = 255 (0xff) (int)
  usb_device.device_revision_bcd = 256 (0x100) (int)
  usb_device.device_subclass = 255 (0xff) (int)
  usb_device.is_self_powered = true (bool)
  usb_device.linux.device_number = 8 (0x8) (int)
  usb_device.linux.sysfs_path = '/sys/devices/pci0001:10/0001:10:1b.2/usb4/4-2/4-2.3' (string)
  usb_device.max_power = 2 (0x2) (int)
  usb_device.num_configurations = 1 (0x1) (int)
  usb_device.num_interfaces = 1 (0x1) (int)
  usb_device.num_ports = 0 (0x0) (int)
  usb_device.product = 'Perfection 2400 Photo' (string)
  usb_device.product_id = 283 (0x11b) (int)
  usb_device.speed = 480.0 (480) (double)
  usb_device.speed_bcd = 294912 (0x48000) (int)
  usb_device.vendor = 'Seiko Epson Corp.' (string)
  usb_device.vendor_id = 1208 (0x4b8) (int)
  usb_device.version = 2.0 (2) (double)
  usb_device.version_bcd = 512 (0x200) (int)

getfacl reports only root access is allowed:
  getfacl: Removing leading '/' from absolute path names
  # file: dev/bus/usb/004/008
  # owner: root
  # group: root
  user::rw-
  group::rw-
  other::r--

Why?

"ck-list-sessions" does not output anything.

This is on a Mac Mini G4 running Ubuntu 8.04 LTS PPC.

[Marius Gedminas (mgedmin)]

I have one laptop here running Hardy where the scanner works fine, and another laptop running Hardy where the scanner doesn't work.

lshal finds it, getfacl reports no special ACLs, ck-list-session sprints a warning message:

  Failed to get list of seats: The name org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit was not provided by any .service files.

Looks like consolekit is buggered somehow. I see no console-kit-daemon running (it's running on the other laptop, where the scanner works).

Uptime is 50 days, the X login is from 28 Apr 2008. I'll ask the owner to log out, log back in and try again.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

lsusb:

Bus 005 Device 004: ID 0424:2504 Standard Microsystems Corp. USB 2.0 Hub
Bus 005 Device 003: ID 0424:2504 Standard Microsystems Corp. USB 2.0 Hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 04b8:010b Seiko Epson Corp. Perfection 1240
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

getfacl:

getfacl: Removing leading '/' from absolute path names
# file: dev/bus/usb/002/003
# owner: root
# group: root
user::rw-
user:bryce:rw-
group::rw-
mask::rw-
other::r--

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Looks like the bug no longer exists in up to date Hardy.

[Glenn (gcoltman)]

i tried doing sudo lsusb in terminal
this correctly showed scanner connected
i took ownership of device in dev/bus/usb