Brother MFC-J480DW printer scans OK, but will not print.

[asqwerth]

Have you checked this out?

https://mxlinux.org/wiki/hardware/scanners#Brother

Hmm. Maybe that's not your issue.

Apologies.

[fehlix]

Just tried all of your suggestions. I have been thru those several times before. no change in the situation. . I'm thinking of trying a new install of MX-17.1 and installing the printer before the major upgrade. Thanks for the support.

OK, I have a final one which I always try in such cases:
Do connect the USB-printer through another USB-port preferable through USB2 instead of USB3.
It's about an timing issue of the simulated USB2 on a existing USB3 port, which happens sometimes.

[ken moreau]

I just tried your final suggestion..also booted with and without systemd. still the same ...will not print. And LM-19 prints well thru the new USB connection. I think I'm going to relegate this to the "too hard" list. Sincere thanks for your interest.

[davemx]

I know the answer to this.

The first time I set up MX-17.1 on my computer, the printer worked fine, but it was my first go, and I installed a lot of junk whilst trying to see what I needed and what worked best. And every other install since, I couldn't get the printer to work. Until yesterday.

It's because the Brother printer drivers are for :i386, and you need a few dependencies to make them work in x64, but Brother's .deb files don't insist on them! I must have pulled them in on the first install by installing something else which I since decided I don't need.

Run synaptic and install gcc-multilib, lib32z1, and lib32ncurses5 and that should sort it out for you!

You might also want to uninstall and re-install the printer drivers, but before re-installing, open a file manager as root, go to /var/spool/, and create a new folder lpd. This will ensure that your printer can spool its output. The Brother debs create the spooling folder under /var/spool/lpd/, but won't if the folder does not exist. It doesn't seem to stop it from working though if it doesn't.

Cheers!

[fehlix]

It's because the Brother printer drivers are for :i386, and you need a few dependencies to make them work in x64, but Brother's .deb files don't insist on them!
..
and install gcc-multilib, lib32z1, and lib32ncurses5 and that should sort it out for you!

I don't need those to have my brother running full functional an my MX17.1 (x86_64 ).

[davemx]

I don't need those to have my brother running full functional an my MX17.1 (x86_64 ).

No doubt. You probably need just one of the dependencies that they brought in between them, which may have already been brought in by something else you installed. Sadly I have no idea which. All I can say is that I found this solution on the net, when I couldn't get my Brother printer to print, tried it, and it worked! Maybe it's overkill...