[sane-devel] Umax Astra 2400S w/ AEC-6712D hanging

[DN Dunham]

>From: abel deuring <adeuring@gmx.net>
>Reply-To: a.deuring@satzbau-gmbh.de
>To: DN Dunham <dunhamdn@hotmail.com>
>CC: sane-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
>Subject: Re: [sane-devel] Umax Astra 2400S w/ AEC-6712D hanging
>Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 18:25:12 +0100
>
>DN Dunham schrieb:
>>I've been trying to figure this one out for a few months now on my own and 
>>thought perhaps someone there might be able to help me.
>
>Well, I hope did not wait so long posting your question because this 
>mailing list appars to bite ;)
>

Nope, just trying to find solutions by reading documentation first before 
asking in a public forum. Don't want to waste anyone's time if the problem 
has already been addressed. Thats also why I tried to give as much detail as 
I could.

>>
>>The Problem:
>>I have an old desktop from a mom and pop shop that I have slowly been 
>>upgrading over the years. About a year ago, I started using Linux RedHat 
>>on it. The problem is that not everything works under Linux. Right now, I 
>>have three pieces of hardware I can't get to work on the desktop and the 
>>most pressing need is for the scanner. Besides a few games, its the only 
>>real reason we ever boot-up into Windows.  Anyways....
>>
>>The scanner is a Umax Astra 2400S that I bought from CDW is 1998. CDW it 
>>appears changed out the SCSI card that was included in the package to an 
>>ACARD AEC-6712D.  This caused a few problems under Windows even, but I 
>>found drivers to get it to work. I now run Linux RedHat 9.0 on my system. 
>>RedHat 9 is able to detect both the card and the scanner. It assigns a 
>>driver atp870u to the card. However, SANE (via xsane 0.89) is unable to 
>>interface with the scanner.
>>
>>After first boot, SANE will detect that the scanner is there and allow me 
>>to try and scan from it. It will actually detect the scanner in two places 
>>(/dev/sg0 and /dev/scanner). However, if I do try and scan with either, 
>>SANE will hang. I seem to recall that sometimes the scanner appears to do 
>>things, but most of the time it doesn't (as in the test I did right now 
>>trying to get a preview).
>>
>>After attempting to do anything the the scanner and having a failure, the 
>>scanner is no longer recognized by the system until reboot. Not even 
>>RedHat's hardware browser will see it there.
>>
>>According to the Sane website, the UMAX ASTRA 2400S is supported, but most 
>>of this seems to be with other SCSI cards. I suspect that that may be my 
>>problem yet the SCSI card itself also seems to be supported by the atp870u 
>>driver. Thus, I'm not sure what to do or how to fix the problem.
>
>Yes, the Linux atp870u driver has/had a bug, which appears only for a few 
>SCSI commands, so the scanner is at first recognzed, but some Sane backends 
>issue commands that raise the bug. Some time ago, I tried to find a 
>maintainer for this driver to report the bug and a fix, but there does not 
>seem to exist any maintainer... So I suspect that the bug exists even in 
>recent kernels.
>
>IIRC, fixing the bug was easy, it just requires to change 2 or 3 source 
>code lines. So you could recompile the atp870u driver. I you want to do 
>that, let me know -- I'll search old emails to find the fix. But if you 
>have never before compiled a Linux kernel, that might be a small adventure 
>;)
>

I would be interested in learning what needs to be changed, if you have the 
time to go through some e-mails for me. While I have compiled a Linux kernel 
before, it was for a class rather than my own machine so it would be a small 
adventure - provided a driver recompile would require that I also recompile 
the kernel. I guess I need to get used to it eventually.


>>Can anyone give me any advice, info or (even better yet) a workable 
>>solution? I'd prefer not to buy another SCSI card, but if it comes to it I 
>>am willing.
>
>Well, I think that it would be worth at least to test another (perhaps 
>borrowed) adapter. From my experience, adapters for the sym53c8xx and the 
>aic7xxx drivers work very well. And if you can't borrow an adapter, you can 
>get used ones at Ebay for a few Dollar/Euro. (the postage can actually be 
>higher than the purchase price itself...)
>
After checking out other options (such as the recompile and seeing what Mr. 
Rauch might be able to tell me from the debug output I sent to the list). 
Thanks for your assistance.

-DN

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