In version 18.04 SimpleScan worked fine, as did the printing function. After the upgrade from 18.04 to 20.04 my Brother DCP-J572DW device did not print nor did it scan.
When I first launched Document scanner, then turned on the printer/scanner, the reply is that an extra driver program is required. I did find the download on the Brother page, downloaded it and installed via driver-installer. The printer does now print again, so it made a difference.
At first, after quiting Documentscanner, with the scanner on, I launched Documentscanner again and Lo and Behold!, it does recognise the device Brother DCP-J572DW and tells me it is ready to scan, but as soon as I try to scan, the message appears "cannot connect to scanner" (in Dutch, but that is not the problem).
Next step: set preferences and try to scan again; the device seems to start, but only shows a window, no further action or the well-known scanner noise. So I hit the "stop" button.
Start a new scan delivers the message "Contacting scanner" (in Dutch again, which is fine). The wheel in the stop-button starts turning, but no action whatsoever. So I stopped it once more. Then tried to quit Documentscanner, which does not react att all. After some minutes it signals: Program does not react. Force quit? Yes, of course, and indeed it does disappear from the screen.
Then tried XSane. After launch it says "searching for scanner". After a while it returns with "could not find device 'brother4:bus2;dev1', wrong argument.
The upgrade apparently mixed up some settings in a directory that I, as a simple end-user, never had to deal with (that is the great advantage of Ubuntu!). As my experience with UNIX dates from 30 years ago, I recognise the commandline interface, but only remember the commands cd.. and ls -l. Can someone instruct me how to correct this scanner thing?
Nico
41 Answer
Either connect to the device by wireless and use sane-airscan or read this post.
