brother mfc-495cw cupsd issue on Ubunutu 13.10

Question

I'm trying to install the Brother linux drivers for my MFC-495cw.

I followed the directions at the brother linux download site. lpr and cupswrapper files are confirmed installed.

I cannot print to this printer using lpd, or usb connections, so I'm figuring its something to do with cups and/or the driver install.

When I try to print, either via cups admin page test page, or via a simple gedit text file, nothing happens, no errors dialogs are given. Just silently fails via USB and WiFi.

Following the ubuntu guide to crank up logging for the error_log, I generate this on a test print page attempt via USB:

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/d0f795a2526822e04e37/raw/6b62afa9be8c740c156432040842234db8b67fd1/gistfile1.txt

and the error log does display some potentially suspect info (there may be more, but this is the only thing that catches my eye:

D [13/Feb/2014:21:36:48 -0800] [Job 36] Wrote 1 pages...
D [13/Feb/2014:21:36:48 -0800] [Job 36] PID 8773 (pstops) exited with no errors.
D [13/Feb/2014:21:36:48 -0800] [Job 36] PID 8756 (/usr/lib/cups/filter/pdftops) exited with no errors.
D [13/Feb/2014:21:36:48 -0800] [Job 36] /usr/lib/cups/filter/brlpdwrappermfc495cw: 119: /usr/lib/cups/filter/brlpdwrappermfc495cw: /opt/brother/Printers/mfc495cw/cupswrapper/brcupsconfpt1: not found
D [13/Feb/2014:21:36:48 -0800] [Job 36] /opt/brother/Printers/mfc495cw/lpd/filtermfc495cw: 50: /opt/brother/Printers/mfc495cw/lpd/filtermfc495cw: /opt/brother/Printers/mfc495cw/lpd/brmfc495cwfilter: not found
D [13/Feb/2014:21:36:48 -0800] [Job 36] Sent 0 bytes...
D [13/Feb/2014:21:36:48 -0800] [Job 36] PID 8757 (/usr/lib/cups/filter/brlpdwrappermfc495cw) exited with no errors.
D [13/Feb/2014:21:36:48 -0800] [Job 36] Waiting for read thread to exit...
D [13/Feb/2014:21:36:48 -0800] [Job 36] PID 8758 (/usr/lib/cups/backend/usb) exited with no errors.
D [13/Feb/2014:21:36:48 -0800] [Job 36] time-at-completed=1392356208
D [13/Feb/2014:21:36:48 -0800] Discarding unused job-completed event...

I can verify these files exist though, with apparently valid permissions:

ls -al /opt/brother/Printers/mfc495cw/cupswrapper/brcupsconfpt1
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 13304 Oct 12  2011 /opt/brother/Printers/mfc495cw/cupswrapper/brcupsconfpt1

ls -al /opt/brother/Printers/mfc495cw/lpd/filtermfc495cw 
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2050 Oct 12  2011 /opt/brother/Printers/mfc495cw/lpd/filtermfc495cw

ls -al /opt/brother/Printers/mfc495cw/lpd/brmfc495cwfilter 
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 664308 Oct 12  2011 /opt/brother/Printers/mfc495cw/lpd/brmfc495cwfilter

Any ideas on whats wrong would be great, thanks!

Answer 1

This is not specific to Cups or Brother. But it is a doc issue for Ubuntu 13 for Brother Printers.

Since the Brother drivers are 32 bit, when you try to execute them, you will get a file not found error, although you can still ls them, file them, (stat them).

Brother docs say to install ia-32libs. But this package no longer exists for Ubuntu 13. The way to get the same functionality is via:

sudo apt-get install gcc-4.7-multilib

Once this package is installed, I can now execute 32 bit binaries, and thus the printer is now working!