Brother printer dissapears from lsusb - force USB replug

Question

I have old Brother printer - DCP-8060.

I successfully installed it, it prints, there's a problem with scanner, but this is not subject of this issue.

My printer simply dissapears from lsusb (it looks like that problem starts when printer go to sleep). Even if I replug usb cable (different usb ports), reboot printer, reboot OS - still no visible. Sometimes after multiple tries it magically shows in lsusb.

Cable is good, because on Windows this works fine.

I run Debian 11, fresh installation, HP Prodesk G4 Mini.

Is there any commands which can force replug (On Raspberry Pi there was something like turn off/turn on whole usb hub)?

Answer 1

Probably not compatible with USB suspend modes at all, and that's likely the only problem. lsusb and get the bus and device numbers of the printer, then:

sudo echo "off" > /sys/bus/usb/device/usb1/1-3/power/control

If that works, you'll have to enter it into /etc/rc.local so that it keeps redoing it every time the machine boots. In this example "1" is the bus number, "3" is the device - You will have to modify that for whatever your lsusb displays. At least that should allow you to test. You can disable usb suspend for the whole kernel by passing arguments via grub command line, but I would avoid that. It saves a lot of power use, and often there is only one or two devices that don't work well will the feature.

You may have to use usbreset [device id from lsusb like NNNN:NNNN] to get it to un-funk itself long enough or you to disable the usb suspend on the port. The only downside here is that you will have to keep using the same port on your computer with the printer.