[sane-devel] Problems faxing from a scanner

[Richard M. Teitel]

I am sending this to several mail lists, since I'm not sure where the 
problem is.  I'm looking for more help.

I am running Red Hat 8.0 kernel 2.4.18-14 on a 700MHZ Pentium III.  I 
have a Conexant V.90/56k data/fax/voice/speakerphone (rev 08) PCI modem 
card, for which I installed 
hcfpcimodem-0.99mbsibeta02123100k2.4.18_14-1rh.i686.rpm for the driver. 
 I also use a UMAX 3400 scanner on the USB port for which I have 
upgraded the sane-backends to version 1.0.11 (from 1.0.8).  I then 
installed hylafax-4.1.5-1rh8.i386.rpm for sending faxes from the scanner 
thru the modem.  All of this SEEMED to integrate nicely.

The scanning function works far better with the upgraded backend than it 
used to, although photos are a little blurry and there is too much red 
that is difficult to compensate for.  The copy function works pretty 
well, too, although the printer colors are off (from a test page, not 
the scanner).  The problem comes when I try to send a fax.

The scanner inputs the page image nicely in B&W, and creates a 
"faxproject."  I am then able to input the destination phone number, and 
start the send process (using the "send faxproject" button on the Xsane 
fax front end).  The system sends the cover page (even though it never 
asks for any cover page input), then crashes without sending the scanned 
page.  The crash consists of a total lockout of any input devices, 
especially the keyboard and mouse.  The cursor stops blinking, the mouse 
pointer disappears, and the "Caps Lock" and "Scroll Lock" lights flash. 
 No keystrokes have any affect.  The only way I have found to recover is 
to press the reset button on the tower, and reboot the system.  When it 
has finished booting, my home page is completely fouled up.  The screen 
is black, the font is about size 1 (unreadable), the X-windows Gnome 
panel is at the top of the screen instead of the bottom.  I have not 
been able to recover the preferred setup from this condition.  I reboot 
again, then log in as root and establish a new account for myself, into 
which I can copy the files I need from the old home directory.

I am hoping that someone can suggest a way to isolate the problem.  Keep 
in mind, the only way I have been able to recover from these crashes is 
to reboot the OS.

Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Rich Teitel