Brother scanner not working in Ubuntu 16.04 though driver installed

I'm running Ubuntu 16.04 and a brother DCP-375CW, a printer and scanner all in one. I downloaded the drivers and used the Driver Install Tool by brother.

This is the result: the system says the drivers are installed. The printer is actually working. But Simple Scan refuses to recognize a driver and xsane won't even recognize a scanner. I tried some instructions I found on the Internet but most of them seem to be for older Ubuntu Versions.
I'm worried that there is something different with Ubuntu 16.04.

$ dpkg -l | grep -i Brother

ii  brother-cups-wrapper-common        1.0.0-10-0ubuntu6   amd64        Common files for Brother cups wrapper packages
ii  brother-udev-rule-type1            1.0.0-1             all          Brother udev rule type 1
ii  brscan-skey                        0.2.4-1             amd64        Brother Linux scanner S-KEY tool
ii  brscan3                            0.2.13-1            amd64        Brother Scanner Driver
ii  dcp375cwcupswrapper:i386           1.1.3-1             i386         Brother CUPS Inkjet Printer Definitions
ii  dcp375cwlpr:i386                   1.1.3-1             i386         Brother lpr Inkjet Printer Definitions
ii  printer-driver-brlaser             3-3build1           amd64        printer driver for (some) Brother laser printers
ii  printer-driver-ptouch              1.4-1               amd64        printer driver Brother P-touch label printers

Solution 1:

I was facing the same issue with my MFC-7840W, but I finally was successful.

Here are my notes:

1. Install brscan3, or another variant of brscan according to your model:

   sudo dpkg -i brscan3-0.2.11-5.amd64.deb
   

2. Install brscan-skey

   sudo dpkg -i brscan-skey-0.2.4-1.amd64.deb
   

3. Run brscan-skey

   $ brscan-skey 
   $ brscan-skey -l
   MFC-7840W         : brother3:net1;dev0  : 192.168.1.10         Active
   

4. Set up scanner

   sudo brsaneconfig3 -a name=MFC-7840W model=MFC-7840W ip=192.168.1.10
   

5. Confirm it worked, look for this output:

   $ brsaneconfig3 -q
   Devices on network
     0 MFC-7840W           "MFC-7840W"         I:192.168.1.10
   

6. Make missing symbolic links if necessary

   sudo mkdir /usr/lib/sane
   sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother3.so /usr/lib/sane/libsane-brother3.so
   sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother3.so.1 /usr/lib/sane/libsane-brother3.so.1
   sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother3.so.1.0.7 /usr/lib/sane/libsane-brother3.so.1.0.7
   sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libbrscandec3.so /usr/lib/libbrscandec3.so
   sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libbrscandec3.so.1 /usr/lib/libbrscandec3.so.1
   sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libbrscandec3.so.1.0.0 /usr/lib/libbrscandec3.so.1.0.0
   

7. Confirm scanimage -L works

   $ scanimage -L
   device `brother3:net1;dev0' is a Brother MFC-7840W MFC-7840W
   

8. Install gscan2pdf

9. Use gscan2pdf to test scanner

Solution 2:

I had a similar problem with the dcp-135c and Ubuntu 16.04 (upgraded from 14.04).

The solution for me was the following:

1. Install all drivers from brother website as normal

2. Open this file: sudo nano /lib/udev/rules.d/40-libsane.rules Add the following line to the file, just before the line "# The following rule will disable USB autosuspend for the device"

   # Brother scanners
   ATTRS{idVendor}=="04f9", ENV{libsane_matched}="yes"`
   

3. Copy the brother driver files from /usr/lib64/sane/ to /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/sane

   sudo cp /usr/lib64/sane/libsane-brother* /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/sane
   

Others had to copy the files in step 3 to /usr/lib/sane instead, maybe it depends on whether you upgraded to ubuntu 16.04 or made a fresh install.

I found this solution in this thread on Ubuntu forums.