[sane-devel] brother MFC-295CN Xsane fails to detect scanner:

Mon Feb 9 05:21:25 GMT 2026

Good to hear from you Ralph:
There were problems I have been working on and have gotten Xsane to work 
now. It came down to installing the package libusb-0.1.so.4 .

# ldd /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother3.so*
/usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother3.so:
         linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007fedc351c000)
         libpthread.so.0 => /lib64/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fedc34e9000)
         libnsl.so.1 => /lib64/libnsl.so.1 (0x00007fedc34e4000)
         libusb-0.1.so.4 => /lib64/libusb-0.1.so.4 (0x00007fedc34dc000)
         libm.so.6 => /lib64/libm.so.6 (0x00007fedc3205000)
         libdl.so.2 => /lib64/libdl.so.2 (0x00007fedc34d5000)
         libc.so.6 => /lib64/libc.so.6 (0x00007fedc2e00000)
         /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fedc351e000)
/usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother3.so.1:
         linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007f2f1c902000)
         libpthread.so.0 => /lib64/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f2f1c8cf000)
         libnsl.so.1 => /lib64/libnsl.so.1 (0x00007f2f1c8ca000)
         libusb-0.1.so.4 => /lib64/libusb-0.1.so.4 (0x00007f2f1c8c2000)
         libm.so.6 => /lib64/libm.so.6 (0x00007f2f1c605000)
         libdl.so.2 => /lib64/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f2f1c8bb000)
         libc.so.6 => /lib64/libc.so.6 (0x00007f2f1c200000)
         /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f2f1c904000)
/usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother3.so.1.0.7:
         linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007f5a750f3000)
         libpthread.so.0 => /lib64/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f5a750c0000)
         libnsl.so.1 => /lib64/libnsl.so.1 (0x00007f5a750bb000)
         libusb-0.1.so.4 => /lib64/libusb-0.1.so.4 (0x00007f5a750b3000)
         libm.so.6 => /lib64/libm.so.6 (0x00007f5a74e05000)
         libdl.so.2 => /lib64/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f5a750ac000)
         libc.so.6 => /lib64/libc.so.6 (0x00007f5a74a00000)
         /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f5a750f5000)

# scanimage -L
device `brother3:bus4;dev2' is a Brother MFC-295CN USB scanner

So I have a question now though. When launching Xsane GUI the 
application window opens very small and cannot be resized in it's 
Konsole window then. I must then move Xsane application and preview 
windows to another workspace where then the application menu show up 
legibly. Using KDE Plasma with Wayland for the Desktop Environment. Can 
this issue be debugged and fixed?

Here is a screenshot of what I am describing :< https://ibb.co/YTcF9DrB

There is also an openSUSE Forums thread which I opened here :< 
https://forums.opensuse.org/t/brother-mfc-295cn-network-connected-printer-fails-to-scan/191648/70 

This led to the final ability for Xsane able to scan and detect the 
MFC-295CN scanner.

Thanks

On 2/8/26 11:08 PM, Ralph Little wrote:
> Hi,
> This model was released around 2009 so it is one of the older machines.
> You really have two options at this point.
> 
> 1) install Brother's scanner driver. They do have a Linux driver on 
> their website that mostly works although they don't update them very 
> often and some people have trouble on new distributions related to 
> dependencies or in the case of Ubuntu derivatives, issues with the 
> placement of libraries.
> 
> 2) You could try our brother_mfp backend which is currently in 
> development. For some people, it works good enough. It is USB only at 
> this stage, but if you are interested I can help you set it up. Some 
> details here: https://gitlab.com/sane-project/backends/-/ 
> merge_requests/751 <https://gitlab.com/sane-project/backends/-/ 
> merge_requests/751>
> Let me know.
> 
> Cheers,
> Ralph
> 
> On Sat, Feb 7, 2026 at 4:58 PM Paul Graff via sane-devel <sane- 
> devel at alioth-lists.debian.net <mailto:sane-devel at alioth- 
> lists.debian.net>> wrote:
> 
>     I am wondering if I could get some help debugging the following output.
>     The MFC-295CN has wonderful print but I simply cannot get it to scan.
> 
>     :~ # !2918
>     SANE_DEBUG_DLL=4 scanimage -L
>     [18:34:54.946643] [sanei_debug] Setting debug level of dll to 4.
>     [18:34:54.946865] [dll] sane_init: SANE dll backend version 1.0.13 from
>     sane-backends 1.2.1
>     [18:34:54.946930] [dll] sane_init/read_dlld: attempting to open
>     directory `./dll.d'
>     [18:34:54.946992] [dll] sane_init/read_dlld: attempting to open
>     directory `/etc/sane.d/dll.d'
>     [18:34:54.947067] [dll] sane_init/read_dlld: using config directory
>     `/etc/sane.d/dll.d'
>     [18:34:54.947156] [dll] add_backend: adding backend `hpaio'
>     [18:34:54.947177] [dll] add_backend: adding backend `airscan'
>     [18:34:54.947228] [dll] add_backend: adding backend `net'
>     [18:34:54.947238] [dll] add_backend: adding backend `escl'
>     [18:34:54.947261] [dll] add_backend: adding backend `genesys'
>     [18:34:54.947286] [dll] add_backend: adding backend `brother3'
>     [18:34:54.947329] [dll] sane_get_devices
>     [18:34:54.947338] [dll] load: searching backend `brother3' in
>     `/usr/lib64/sane'
>     [18:34:54.947346] [dll] load: trying to load
>     `/usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother3.so.1'
>     [18:34:54.947360] [dll] load: dlopen()ing
>     `/usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother3.so.1'
>     [18:34:54.947670] [dll] load: dlopen() failed (libusb-0.1.so.4: cannot
>     open shared object file: No such file or directory)
>     [18:34:54.947687] [dll] load: searching backend `genesys' in
>     `/usr/lib64/sane'
>     [18:34:54.947696] [dll] load: trying to load
>     `/usr/lib64/sane/libsane-genesys.so.1'
>     [18:34:54.947710] [dll] load: dlopen()ing
>     `/usr/lib64/sane/libsane-genesys.so.1'
>     [18:34:54.951153] [dll] init: initializing backend `genesys'
>     [18:34:55.100366] [dll] init: backend `genesys' is version 1.0.0
>     [18:34:55.101524] [dll] load: searching backend `escl' in `/usr/
>     lib64/sane'
>     [18:34:55.101572] [dll] load: trying to load
>     `/usr/lib64/sane/libsane-escl.so.1'
>     [18:34:55.101625] [dll] load: dlopen()ing
>     `/usr/lib64/sane/libsane-escl.so.1'
>     [18:34:55.144314] [dll] init: initializing backend `escl'
>     [18:34:55.145657] [dll] init: backend `escl' is version 1.0.0
>     [18:34:56.161087] [dll] load: searching backend `net' in `/usr/
>     lib64/sane'
>     [18:34:56.161160] [dll] load: trying to load
>     `/usr/lib64/sane/libsane-net.so.1'
>     [18:34:56.161234] [dll] load: dlopen()ing `/usr/lib64/sane/libsane-
>     net.so.1'
>     [18:34:56.167294] [dll] init: initializing backend `net'
>     [18:34:56.184376] [dll] init: backend `net' is version 1.2.1
>     [18:35:02.353491] [dll] load: searching backend `airscan' in
>     `/usr/lib64/sane'
>     [18:35:02.353565] [dll] load: trying to load
>     `/usr/lib64/sane/libsane-airscan.so.1'
>     [18:35:02.353640] [dll] load: dlopen()ing
>     `/usr/lib64/sane/libsane-airscan.so.1'
>     [18:35:02.382769] [dll] init: initializing backend `airscan'
>     [18:35:02.385931] [dll] init: backend `airscan' is version 1.0.0
>     [18:35:03.396824] [dll] load: searching backend `hpaio' in `/usr/
>     lib64/sane'
>     [18:35:03.396898] [dll] load: trying to load
>     `/usr/lib64/sane/libsane-hpaio.so.1'
>     [18:35:03.396973] [dll] load: dlopen()ing
>     `/usr/lib64/sane/libsane-hpaio.so.1'
>     [18:35:03.401716] [dll] init: initializing backend `hpaio'
>     [18:35:03.402156] [dll] init: backend `hpaio' is version 1.0.0
>     [18:35:03.424671] [dll] sane_get_devices: found 0 devices
> 
>     And:
> 
>     :/usr/lib64 # ls -lah | grep libnsl.so.1
>     lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root    18 Feb  7 16:47 libnsl.so.1 -> /lib64/
>     libnsl.so.3
>     :/usr/lib64 #
> 
>     Is the MFC-295CN simply to old to be able to scan well anymore?
>     -Thank you for any thoughts on this.
> 