Xsane locking up

[scruffyeagleMember]

I have an old Dell 9400 Latitude laptop as my backup machine. Every now and then, I need to actually use it, because it has more modern USB ports (USB 2.0?) than my main machine, a Dell Precision m6300. The reason I need the more modern ports, is because a couple of years ago I had to replace my scanner – and, the Canon Canoscan LiDE 300 I bought requires at least USB 2.0 to function (which the Precision doesn’t have).

I have multiboot set up on both of the laptops. The Latitude has windows 10, a23, and a19. The Precision has w10, a21, and a23. The most recently installed OS was the antiX23 going onto the Latitude.

As I mentioned, every now and then I need to scan something, so I have to use the Laittude for that purpose. I’ve run into a problem, using a23 for scanning – in fairly short order, it locks up the entire system, when receiving scan data from the scanner. The only way to escape the lockup, seems to be a hard shutdown using the power key.

Luckily, this hasn’t entirely prevented me from scanning, because I still have that old installation of antiX19 on the hard drive as a boot option. But, it’s still frustrating, being forced to use that old OS that can’t be updated, instead of the brand spanking new OS that’s up to date.

I sent the output from “inxi -Fxz” to a text file, for sharing here:

System:
  Kernel: 6.1.105-antix.1-amd64-smp arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
    v: 12.2.0
  Desktop: IceWM v: 3.7.5 Distro: antiX-23.2_x64-full Arditi del Popolo 5
    October 2024 base: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Machine:
  Type: Portable System: Dell product: Latitude E6400 v: N/A
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Dell model: 0U692R serial: <superuser required> BIOS: Dell v: A34
    date: 06/04/2013
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 74.9 Wh (100.0%) condition: 74.9/76.4 Wh (98.1%)
    volts: 11.9 min: 11.1 model: Panasonic DELL FU44196 status: full
CPU:
  Info: dual core model: Intel Core2 Duo P8600 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Penryn
    rev: A cache: L1: 128 KiB L2: 3 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 798 min/max: 800/2401 boost: enabled cores: 1: 798
    2: 798 bogomips: 9576
  Flags: ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 ssse3
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Mobile 4 Series Integrated Graphics vendor: Dell
    driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-5 bus-ID: 00:02.0
  Display: server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.7 driver: X: loaded: intel dri: crocus
    gpu: i915 resolution: 1280x800~60Hz
  API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: crocus,swrast platforms:
    active: gbm,x11,surfaceless,device inactive: wayland
  API: OpenGL v: 2.1 vendor: intel mesa v: 22.3.6 glx-v: 1.4
    direct-render: yes renderer: Mesa Mobile Intel GM45 Express (CTG)
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 82801I HD Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
    bus-ID: 00:1b.0
  API: ALSA v: k6.1.105-antix.1-amd64-smp status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.2.7 status: active
Network:
  Device-1: Intel 82567LM Gigabit Network vendor: Dell driver: e1000e
    v: kernel port: efe0 bus-ID: 00:19.0
  IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Intel WiFi Link 5100 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel bus-ID: 0c:00.0
  IF: wlan0 state: down mac: <filter>
RAID:
  Hardware-1: Intel 82801 Mobile SATA Controller [RAID mode] driver: ahci
    v: 3.0 bus-ID: 00:1f.2
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 1.14 TiB used: 25.08 GiB (2.2%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Toshiba model: MK2561GSYN size: 232.89 GiB
  ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Western Digital model: WD My Passport 0748
    size: 931.48 GiB type: USB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 49.68 GiB used: 9.97 GiB (20.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda6
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 9.77 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%)
    dev: /dev/sda3
  ID-2: swap-2 type: file size: 2 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) file: /swap/swap
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 38.0 C mobo: N/A sodimm: SODIMM C
  Fan Speeds (rpm): cpu: 0
Info:
  Memory: total: 4 GiB available: 3.78 GiB used: 845.7 MiB (21.8%)
  Processes: 164 Uptime: 11m Init: SysVinit runlevel: 2
  Packages: 2046 Compilers: gcc: 12.2.0 Shell: Bash v: 5.2.15 inxi: 3.3.36

I’m at a loss, for how to proceed in fixing this…
So, I’m posting this here.
TIA, for any help you can give me.
I’m attaching the inxi -Fxz output text file, in case that might be easier to work with than the code display in hte forum.

Attachments:

1. 250624-inxi-Fxz-output.txt

Sociatry - psychiatry for egregores.

[sybokMember]

Random tips as I am wild guessing (because of little experience with HW issues and someone else may come up with something more relevant without these general recommendations).

1) You could start comparing (e.g. ‘diff’ or ‘vimdiff’) inxi of both systems.
E.g. when not sure, I sometimes blame change(s) in the kernel – is it possible to install the same antiX kernel in a23?

2) You could start the scanning SW from terminal and redirect its output (both STDOUT and STDERR) to dedicated files and explore them later after the kill-switch, i.e. pressing power button; this could be achieved e.g. this way ‘xsane 1>~/STDout.tmp 2~/STDerr.tmp’
It might leave some useful information for debugging.

3) Is there anything in the logs? ‘~/.desktop-session/’, ‘/var/log/dmesg’.

4) Can you start scanning and at the same time observing conky to see if anything fishy is going on (can be joined with item no. 2))?

5) Did you install any specific driver?

[Xunzi_23Member]

Hi scruffyeagel,
I think the scanner can be persuaded to work. I tried to post this morning, forum went weird then disappeared as did my EMail provider.
Then on I had more than 8 hours without cable internet. Sorry for delay.

According to this official SANE list, the Canon CanoScan LiDE 300 is fully
supported out-of-the-box by an open-source driver:
http://www.sane-project.org/sane-backends-1.2.1.html#S-PIXMA

some further tips here
https://www.enovision.net/scanner-canoscan-lide-300-ubuntu

• This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by Xunzi_23.

[scruffyeagleMember]

sybok wrote:

Random tips as I am wild guessing (because of little experience with HW issues and someone else may come up with something more relevant without these general recommendations).

1) You could start comparing (e.g. ‘diff’ or ‘vimdiff’) inxi of both systems.
E.g. when not sure, I sometimes blame change(s) in the kernel – is it possible to install the same antiX kernel in a23?

2) You could start the scanning SW from terminal and redirect its output (both STDOUT and STDERR) to dedicated files and explore them later after the kill-switch, i.e. pressing power button; this could be achieved e.g. this way ‘xsane 1>~/STDout.tmp 2~/STDerr.tmp’
It might leave some useful information for debugging.

3) Is there anything in the logs? ‘~/.desktop-session/’, ‘/var/log/dmesg’.

4) Can you start scanning and at the same time observing conky to see if anything fishy is going on (can be joined with item no. 2))?

5) Did you install any specific driver?

I was really hoping somebody might have encountered and fixed this problem on their own system… You know, somebody who could talk me through what I need to do?

1) I don’t know if it’s possible to install a very old kernel into a23. Besides which, where & how would I obtain such a kernel?

2) I don’t know if the scanner can even be operated from command line. I’ve always relied on graphic interface programs.

3) Checkinig the log is a good idea. I’ve made a note of what to inspect (‘~/.desktop-session/’, ‘/var/log/dmesg’). But, would that data survive a reboot and be available for inspection, or would it restart those logs from scratch?

4) Yeah, I could watch Conky. For example, maybe it would show a cessation of activity, or even thrashing in the CPU & drive?

5) No, I didn’t install any specific driver, in either antiX (23 or 19). There didn’t seem to be any need for doing so.

Sociatry - psychiatry for egregores.

[scruffyeagleMember]

Xunzi_23 wrote:

Hi scruffyeagel,
I think the scanner can be persuaded to work. I tried to post this morning, forum went weird then disappeared as did my EMail provider.
Then on I had more than 8 hours without cable internet. Sorry for delay.

According to this official SANE list, the Canon CanoScan LiDE 300 is fully
supported out-of-the-box by an open-source driver:
http://www.sane-project.org/sane-backends-1.2.1.html#S-PIXMA

some further tips here
https://www.enovision.net/scanner-canoscan-lide-300-ubuntu

Thank you for the reply.
That 2nd link might have the solution, via installing a Canon driver. I’ll have to experiment with it. I printed the entire page to a PDF file, so I won’t need to chase it down again online.

If I find it solves the problem, I’ll come back and post another reply to your reply, to let you know it worked. But, don’t hold your breath. I’m a busy guy, and I’m slow with this stuff. Thanks for your help.

Sociatry - psychiatry for egregores.

[Xunzi_23Member]

Hi scruffyeagel, the first link is the one you need most, when sane project says fully supported the device is.

Problems usually occur in such cases when a lot of theings have been tried and stale config files remain, use
the purge flag to avoid those issues as far as possible. Pls also know that canon device is not among best choices,
Epson Seiko is very solid and provides better quality.

[sybokMember]

I’ve always relied on graphic interface programs.

Still, I expect that you can start this GUI from the terminal; just like you can start Firefox from the terminal.

The GUI probably has a ‘*.desktop’ file (expected to be in ‘/usr/share/applications/’ or somewhere else in ‘/usr/share/’), the line starting with ‘Exec’ in that file provides the command to run.

[Xunzi_23Member]

Hi sybok, the device is fully supported, it should work fine with XSane,
simple scan maybe not, and of course you can start from the terminal, the menu or
desktop file just passes on the commands. Convenient but it really is good to use
the terminal when problem solving.

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