0

The scanner software ScanGear is failing for one user but working for me. Running scangearmp for either of us finds the scanner:

Screenshot of selecting a scanner

Then on pressing ‘OK’, I get to scan documents but my child gets an error message: “ScanGear: Internal Error occurred. Scanner driver will be closed.”:

Screenshot of the error message

This is on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa), both users on the same laptop, just with separate user accounts. I have added my child's user to the scanner group.

What can I try to make scanning work for all users? Thanks.

Improve this question
8
  • Don't have experience with 2-users-on-one-pc issue but have had similiar problem with 2-users-on-one-lan. Only one user can connect to the scanner at a time. If you restart the laptop, let the child sign on (and not you) does it work? If no, different problem.
    – Organic Marble
    May 5, 2020 at 11:51
  • Good idea, @OrganicMarble. Unfortunately it didn't work. I rebooted the laptop (and the scanner), logged in as my child before me, and tried running scangearmp first as the child. Same error message as above. Switching to my user, scapgearmp still worked fine.
    – Smylers
    May 5, 2020 at 12:29
  • 1
    I found a real multiuser machine with scangear on it and it worked for both users. A couple of questions: how is the printer connected - usb, lan, samba? How are you starting scangear - command line, desktop shortcut?
    – Organic Marble
    May 5, 2020 at 12:48
  • 1
    It would be interesting to find what actually fails - so you think you could get a strace and find what's failing?
    – jpalecek
    May 5, 2020 at 14:04
  • 1
    Glad to have been of help. However, this is an example of very sloppy programming, if not a security vulnerability.
    – jpalecek
    May 5, 2020 at 16:21

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0

The fix was to remove /var/tmp/canon_sgmp_setting_common.ini, by the user who can use the scanner (or root).

scangearmp creates that file if it doesn't already exist and tries to make it writeable by all, even if it already is. But it only has permission to do so if it owns the file, meaning that in practice once scangearmp has run, it can only be run again by the same user until that file is deleted.

Thank you, @jpalecek, for pointing me in the right direction.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .