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When I run Xsane as root it works.

When I launch Xsane as a user other than root I get the following error message:

failed to open device 'brother4:bus7;dev1':Invalid argument

I am using Ubuntu 14.04

The scanner part of my Brother HL-2280DW printer, scanner, copier is working when I run Xsane as root.

Any suggestions would be welcome

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7
  • 1
    Edit your question and add the Ubuntu version.
    – A.B.
    May 4, 2015 at 10:56
  • In my 14.04, xsane hangs sometime. I have to remove ~/.sane and it'll start again. Don't know why (this is the reason this is not an answer).
    – Rmano
    May 4, 2015 at 11:16
  • how do I remove ~/.sane
    – Richard Lott
    May 4, 2015 at 11:46
  • I removed ~/.sane and re-started xsane but it didn't help. I get the same error message.
    – Richard Lott
    May 4, 2015 at 12:35
  • Maybe there are more sane-related items (folder our file) in your home folder that you should delete (press Control+H and then enter "sane" in the Search box).
    – Sadi
    May 4, 2015 at 13:22

1 Answer 1

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0

This error may happen because your user doesn't have the required privileges to access your scanner. Make sure your user is member of the scanner group.

You can add your user to that group from the Unity Control Center, and then logout and login again so the applications can see the change.

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4
  • I couldn't figure out how to add user richard to the scanner group from the Unity Control Center so I used the following command: sudo adduser richard scanner
    – Richard Lott
    May 4, 2015 at 23:27
  • and verified by using the command: id richard. When I ran xsane from the terminal as richard I got the same error message as before.
    – Richard Lott
    May 4, 2015 at 23:29
  • @RichardLott to let your user get the new privileges you need to log out and then login again. Did you tried to do so?
    – gerlos
    Mar 6, 2017 at 17:28
  • 1
    sudo usermod -a -G scanner YOUR_USER then you either logout and login or run in terminal sudo su - $USER (assuming you have sudo privileges), and just run xsane after that. should work.
    – Asaf
    Mar 30, 2018 at 16:09

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