Brother Printers and cups-browsed — HOW TO

[davemx]

I've just solved an issue that has been bugging me for some time, and the solution was so easy!!

What follows may not apply to all Brother printers but is worth a try if you're having the same issue as I did. Read on...

I have a Brother Printer/Scanner, a MFC-J5320DW. It's easy to install, using a script downloaded from the Brother site. However, if you don't do this, you see that a printer has been detected. The problem is, the automatically detected one doesn't work! If you do run the Brother script, you end up with two printer options, one doesn't work, one does. You can unmark "Enabled" on the bad one, but it still shows up in dialogue boxes.

The second, non-working, printer cannot be deleted, it just comes back again. It is "detected" by a background program called cups-browsed. It's simple to disable, just go into MXPI or Synaptic, and uninstall it! If this causes any problems, you can simply re-install it. But I'm pretty sure that it won't.

The purpose of cups-browsed is to detect printers on the network. If you don't have it installed, you have to manually install your printer. If you have other Linux devices, like a laptop, the Brother script can detect and install a Brother printer on the network.

Perhaps one day Brother printers will work without a driver, but for now, my one at least, does not.

[asqwerth]

It could be the model. Mine, mfc-L3750 works on mx19 and mx21 without printer driver.

[davemx]

It could be the model. Mine, mfc-L3750 works on mx19 and mx21 without printer driver.

L = Laser. Maybe the interface is different to J = Jet. Or maybe it's because mine is a 2014 model. Who knows?

[srq2625]

I have an HP LaserJet MFP m227-m231.

I have to install the HP driver software from the MX Package Installer to get this thing to print correctly. And, just like the OP, I get two printers; the discovered one and the one I install. The discovered one doesn't work.

This "fix" is wonderful! Works for me!

[davemx]

I have an HP LaserJet MFP m227-m231.

I have to install the HP driver software from the MX Package Installer to get this thing to print correctly. And, just like the OP, I get two printers; the discovered one and the one I install. The discovered one doesn't work.

This "fix" is wonderful! Works for me!

As it happens I finally had to get rid of the Brother printer, as the jams were getting more and more frequent. I bought a new Brother, the MFC-J5335DW. With this one, I reinstalled cups-browsed to see what would happen. In this case, the printer was not auto detected, and I didn't get a message when installing drivers from the Brother script that drivers are deprecated and won't be used in future. The print dialogue has been much redesigned and the settings you need most are duplicated and gathered together so you don't have to search through tabs. Nice.

[davemx]

Just an update: I only have the printer installed by Brother's script in the Settings > Print Settings applet, but the dodgy one turns up in the dialogue boxes for actual programs. There must be a way of blocking it!

[cmf5]

Thank you, davemx. This solution worked when I had a similar problem with my Brother HL-L2380DW.

[LnoyBoy]

Hello all,

Adding on.. Hoping this helps someone in the future.

Fed up with HP, I recently switched to a Brother HL-L2395DW laser all-in-one.

I did my research, and believed that the printer would work on linux.

However, the Brother driver finder system kept saying 'no drivers found.'

Turns out, you have to enter the model number EXACTLY the way it wants it, upper-
case, lower-case, spaces, etc. Once I entered the model number to it's satisfaction,
it found the correct driver, the install went smoothly, and so far the printer is
working like a dream.

Hope this helps.

Dale