Unable to use Brother MFC-8420 printer

English Hardware
#1

It would be nice to be able to use it as a scanner and faxer, too, but for now I’d be really happy to print.
I upgraded from 11.4 to 12.1 and haven’t printed since. I kept all the old sysconfig and ppd files and such,
but it won’t respond at all any more.

I looked here:
http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/hardware/470665-having-difficulty-installing-my-brother-printer-mfc8860dn-opensuse-12-1-a.html

but the recommendations there did not work. I fuzzily remember command line ways of telling CUPS that the usb connected
printer should be treated as a parallel port printer and testing it. But I’ve forgotten both those instructions and the right
Google search to recover those instructions.

Any hints? Thank you!

#2

P.S. I’ve been here, too:

Brother Solutions Center : Brother Driver for Linux Distributions

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 04f9:0142 Brother Industries, Ltd MFC-8420

#3

but the recommendations there did not work. I fuzzily remember command line ways of telling CUPS that the usb connected
printer should be treated as a parallel port printer and testing it.

I’ve never had to resort to this kind of trick with a usb-connected printer. Does the CUPS usb backend not support it properly?

Can you post your /etc/cups/printers.conf contents?

#4

So, you have installed the lpr and cupswrapper packages for your printer?

Brother Solutions Center : Brother Driver for Linux Distributions

#5

Yast flat out won’t see it, both before and after messing with the drivers, per the Brother Solutions Center.
The “add printer” cups interface does not see anything local, so it asks if I want to use an HP setup or
some filter command. There are no discovered network printers (it is USB and local), so I have to invent my own.
I tried copying from my old installation. Same printer. Same computer. Same printers.conf.

I was going to say: Doesn’t work now.
except restarting the printer the nth time caused it to work.
Likely I fiddled something because I’ve tried one fiddle after another.
The following does not work if the DeviceURI says “usb” instead of “parallel”.

Printer configuration file for CUPS v1.4.6

Written by cupsd on 2012-01-02 11:50

DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE WHEN CUPSD IS RUNNING

<DefaultPrinter oh_brother>
Info Brother MFC-8420
Location here
MakeModel Brother MFC-8420 BR-Script3
DeviceURI parallel:/dev/usb/lp0
State Idle
StateTime 1323729972
Type 8392772
Filter application/vnd.cups-raw 0 -
Filter application/vnd.cups-command 0 commandtops
Filter application/vnd.cups-postscript 0 -
Accepting Yes
Shared Yes
JobSheets none none
QuotaPeriod 0
PageLimit 0
KLimit 0
OpPolicy default
ErrorPolicy stop-printer
</Printer>

#6

So, you have installed the lpr and cupswrapper packages for your printer?
Yes, I have.

#7

And you installed them in this order ?

  1. lpr
  2. cups

Because the order is really important here.

You have to do it this way :

  1. disconnect the printer
  2. install the lpr driver
  3. install the cups driver
  4. reconnect the printer and let yast detect it (it should detect it) and select the appropriate driver form the list of provided one
#8

Try using the CUPS interface to configure your usb-connected brother printer

http://localhost:631/admin

Click on ‘Add Printer’, enter your root credentials and proceed from there.

#9

I have the same issue with a Brother HL-2170W. I installed the drivers from the Brother website in the proper order and it is still a no go. I have not been able to figure it out either. You are not alone on this one.

#10

Hi bkorb

I note that you filed a bug report for this behaviour previously

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=679488

So, you’re using the workaround with the backend to get any kind of connectivity.

Does the following command report your printer?

/usr/lib/cups/backend/usb

If not, is the ‘usblp’ module present? (On my system it is loaded when a printer is first connected)

For reference, I get this reported with my printer plugged in

 # /usr/lib/cups/backend/usb
direct usb://Brother/DCP-7055 "Brother DCP-7055" "Brother DCP-7055" "MFG:Brother;CMD:PJL,XL2HB;MDL:DCP-7055;CLS:PRINTER;CID:Brother Laser Type1;" ""

I have seen evidence of this backend failing when certain printer stings are not correctly parsed, but that is a CUPS error, not specific to your printer or driver.

#11

Here’s an Ubuntu bug report describing similar behaviour with another Brother printer model

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cups/+bug/883169

They have upgraded the CUPS package recently with several bug fixes, allegedly correcting this problem. I wonder how long it might take to see those same fixes in the openSUSE CUPS package.

#12

To the op, are you using a 64 bit opensuse?

#13

To the op, I check your printer at brother site and i noticed, this one need the ppd
You did not mention of putting it in your machine. This could be the missing link.
http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/bsc/public_s/id/linux/en/instruction_prn1c.html