[sane-devel] Debug Unsupported Scanner?

[Stef]

On 13/03/2014 19:02, jerry wrote:
> Hello all,
>
>     Trying to get going with my periodic Giant Wallet Fluff 
> Elimination Project ( GWFEP ).  I do have a big networked scanner with 
> an ADF, but for wallet fluff, I much prefer a little sheet fed 
> scanner.  Sit on the floor with the scanner and the pile of wallet 
> fluff, shove little receipts etc through the scanner into the "done" 
> pile.  Then take the whole pile and vacuum pack it into a baggie for 
> long-term storage.  Or even shred it.
>
>     My old Visioneer Strobe XP 100 is alas no longer functional, 
> because I no longer have a Windows XP system.  They changed chipsets 
> on the last version - supported by the "genesys" driver.
>
>    I bought a later version on Ebay, but yesterday the postman arrived 
> with it and said "You owe us $22.77 of postage".  I didn't pay it, and 
> he took it back to the post office.  Sadly disappointed, just for yuks 
> I stuck my old unsupported scanner onto my Ubuntu system.  Wonder of 
> wonders, I actually got it to scan.  Twice.  But it's not reliable.
>
>   sane-find-scanner intimates that it uses a LM9832 chip.  There is 
> support for such in the Plustek driver, and I added a line
> [usb] 0x04a7 0x0427 to plustek.conf.
>
>   The thing is not stable at all.  Lots of I/O errors, lots of 
> freezes, lots of plugging and unplugging the scanner from the USB.  
> Every time I do so, the minor number of the USB device increments, and 
> I have to change the scanimage invocation.
>
>   Is troubleshooting this thing worthwhile?  How would one do it? I am 
> an experienced C/assembler embedded systems developer - did that for a 
> living for 20 years.  So I know how to use gdb etc. Can the USB be 
> snooped?  It behaves like something is not being initialized - and 
> depending on the garbage therein, it either works or it doesn't.
>

     I use usbsnoop on a windows XP machine to record logs. Then I 
process them to extract the command flow. So I can modify or update the 
backend until it works. Wireshark has also the ability to record USB 
ctivity.

>   I suspect that the chipset/scanner is not stable in and of itself.  
> It was not totally reliable under windows XP.  And Visioneer surely 
> had some reason for changing chipsets on their version 3.  Changing 
> chipsets costs money.
>
>   Still, an awful lot of stuff does work.  And while the scanner was 
> not completely stable under XP, it was stable enough to get real work 
> done :).
>
>                - Jerry Kaidor
>
>
>