How to configure scanner in Canon Pixma MP250? (SOLVED)

[npierce]

scangearmp output:

scangearmp: error while loading shared libraries: libgimpconfig-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

(but I have installed gimp, as explained above)

Okay, so it should be there, unless something has overwritten the link since you installed Gimp, or something else went wrong. Last week when it couldn't find libgimp-2.0.so.0, you found it with pfind. It might now be worth trying that for libgimpconfig-2.0.so.0 to see if both the link and the file it points to really exist.

(Assuming that you installed the 2.6.3 version (gimp-2.6.3-i486.pet), I would expect it to be in /usr/local/lib along with libgimp-2.0.so.0 and, since you ran ldconfig, I would think it could find it. But since it can't, a little hunting might give us a clue.)

I wonder what else it can't find. If you execute the following command, do you get a long list?

Code: Select all

ldd /usr/local/bin/scangearmp | grep "not found"

[Rattlehead]

Er... I ran ldconfig again and the error disappeared At some point, after installing so many different programs, I got back to a previous, clean pupsave, and then, in further experiments, I maybe skipped that step.

Now scangear opens, the computer communicates with the scanner, victory is close but not yet:

I press "preview" or "scan" (not exact names because my Scangear is in Spanish), and both show the same result:

-Message telling "wait, the scanner is warming up"

-Progress bar with a % that never starts and

-The scanner makes some noises that look quite ugly to me, and then the program freezes.

I remember that some documentation (but I don't remember if it was in this particular program or other) warned that there was a risk of damaging the scanner because the program did not calculate the limit to stop the scanner or something like that. Maybe those noises are normal (I don't have a reference because I just bought the scanner, never used it before), but they sound quite ugly to me and, obviously, I want to ask before making more tests...

[npierce]

Okay, sounds like some progress.

Unfortunately, I know next to nothing about SANE (except that whoever came up with the name, "Scanner Access Now Easy", must have had a strange sense of humor). So perhaps you might want to wait for Sit Heel Speak, or someone else who is familiar with this stuff before proceeding. I couldn't tell you if the sounds your scanner was making are worrisome or not.

That said, I am wondering if the old pupsave that you are using was from before the time that you installed the scangearmp-mp250series package from Canon. That package has a bunch of stuff like /usr/lib/bjlib/CNC250.DAT, /usr/lib/bjlib/CNC250P.DAT, and updated libraries which I am guessing might be needed by scangearmp to support your model. I'm not sure if that is a good guess or not, but it seems like a possibility.

But, of course, you should get an answer about the noise from someone who knows about such things before proceeding.

[muggins]

Rattlehead,

I should have read the docs first! See here, where it says:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Only GIMP can start ScanGear. No other application can start ScanGear.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Place the document face-down on the platen glass.

2. Select [Create] -> [ScanGear MP...] from the [File] menu in GIMP.

So, as the File>Create function doesn't exist in gimp-2.4, then you do need to install gimp-2.6.

Also, mentioned by SHS, I neglected to add the scangearmp common libs, so I've re-uploaded a .pet with them.

[Rattlehead]

Pretty strange...
I do have Gimp 2.6. (2.6.3. to be precise).
I do have scangearmp-mp250 (without the "series" at the end of the name after the updating of the .pet-is it relevant?)

BUT my Gimp does not have that create -> scangearmp option.

I've tried uninstalling scangear and gimp and then reinstalling. No luck, the option does not appear... how can it be?

[npierce]

I do have scangearmp-mp250 (without the "series" at the end of the name after the updating of the .pet-is it relevant?)

I was thinking of the scangearmp-mp250series package that you got from Canon in item 2 of the list of things you tried from your original post. But since you've installed the latest scangearmp-mp250-1.40-1.pet from muggins, which presumably has all of the stuff from the canon package, you should have the files I was wondering about.

[Rattlehead]

Any more suggestions, anybody? I'm starting to see a dual boot with XP in the horizon and God knows I don't want that!!!

[npierce]

Hi Rattlehead,

Three items:

1.

Have you found an answer to your concern about the ugly noises the scanner made when it tried to scan? Naturally you are reluctant to try scangear again if you think there is a possibility that it might damage your hardware. Perhaps if you could describe the noise in more detail, someone who has a recent Canon scanner/printer combo will read this and jump in to say if it does or does not make similar noises.

My scanner is a flatbed, not a combo, an HP, not a Canon, and designed in the twentieth century, not the twenty-first. So it is likely a much different animal, and probably doesn't moo, bark, or screech the same as yours. (That said, "screech" is what mine does -- fairly high-pitched but not overly loud.)

Being a brand new machine, have you double-checked to see if you might have missed any packing material that might be interfering with the scan head and causing the "ugly" noises?

I remember that some documentation (but I don't remember if it was in this particular program or other) warned that there was a risk of damaging the scanner because the program did not calculate the limit to stop the scanner or something like that. Maybe those noises are normal . . .

If this continues to be a concern, it would be good if you could find that documentation again to see what software this referred to. I wouldn't think that scangear would do this, since it is distributed by Canon themselves. But it would be nice to know for sure.

2.

When it tried to scan, could you tell if the light came on? Was there any paper movement? Did it do anything interesting other than make noises?

3.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Only GIMP can start ScanGear. No other application can start ScanGear.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just to be clear, that was from the page titled, "Scanning from an Application".
When Canon says "No other application", I don't think they were talking about bash. In fact, you will notice that the very next page in the manual is titled "Scanning from a Terminal Software".

I'm not familiar with the GIMP-scangear interface, or why it doesn't show up in the GIMP menu. Perhaps GIMP doesn't list it unless it detects the scanner when GIMP is started. Perhaps not. To minimize the number of things that can go wrong, I would suggest leaving GIMP out of the picture for now, and just try scangear from the command line. (Later, when you get the scanner going, you can troubleshoot the GIMP issue, if it still is a problem.)

[Rattlehead]

Thanx, Npierce, great points all of them. I was so focused on the missing Gimp option that I did not even remember any more that Scangearmp can be started on its own.

I'm leaving the town for a few days, and thus I'll be far from the scanner; I'll post here when I'm back and after trying all your suggestions. Thanx again.

[muggins]

To have scangearmp appear in the Gimp menu, I just needed to symlink the scangearmp executable to the gimp plugins directory:

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ln -s /usr/bin/scangearmp /usr/local/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins

[Rattlehead]

Thanks Muggins. As I mentioned above, I am traveling and cannot try the link by the moment, but it looks good!

Btw, somewhere along the way, my Seamonkey got screwed up: I've lost the progress bar screen for downloads, and recently I have discovered that I cannot save web pages into my HD. Anybody has an idea of which library of the new ones installed could have caused such a mess?

[Rattlehead]

Hi everybody, I'm back. I've inserted Muggins' link and now Gimp has access to scangear.

However, the results when previewing or scanning are still the same: weird noises in the scanner, progress bar frozen in 0%, and finally I have to kill the application.

Any idea?

[rcrsn51]

@Rattlehead: If you are still around, I believe that the solution to your Canon MP250 scanner problem is here.

[Rattlehead]

YES!!!
YES!!!
YES!!!

After installing pixma-backend-431-1.0.21.pet, the scanner works both in Xsane and via Gimp

VICTORY!!!

Thanks all you guys, and sorry for the delay in replying... I've been quite ill and I'm still just so-so

Thanks!!!

[rcrsn51]

Glad to help.

[npierce]

Yay!

Thank you rcrsn51.

It is always good to see a long thread eventually get resolved!