CLX-3175FN bleeding/blurred text since 4.00.36

[remon]

1. Model: CLX-3175FN
2. Linux: Ubuntu 13.04
3. Connection: Network
4. Driver versions: 4.00.36, 4.00.39 and 4.01.17
5. Problem: black text is blurred and a little to bold, it seems to bleed. I am not sure if the black text is actually printed with the color toner.
6. Other relevant information:

Versions 4.00.35, 3.00.65 and 3.00.37 print perfectly sharp black text, but then the scanner does not work. Version 3.00.90 prints sharp text as well, but cuts the top margin off.

With 4.00.35 installed, running "/opt/Samsung/mfp/bin/netdiscovery --all --scanner" gives:
# DEBUG: Network printers discovery utility
ip: 192.168.2.2     slp: 0,0,0,0 snmp: 1,1,0 vendor: Samsung dsc: "CLX-3170 Series"

The foomatic driver prints sharp text but lines are too thin and the colors are all wrong (too dark mainly).

Can I do something to get the sharp text from before 4.00.36 but with the scanner working as in 4.00.36 and higher?

[bchemnet]

Maybe.  You can try manually mixing and matching files from different driver versions.  To do this, install one of the versions as usual.  Then download the driver package for the other version you wish to mix with by accessing it from the website through http://www.bchemnet.com/suldr/pool/debian/extra/su (be sure to select the one named with the appropriate architecture).

There are two approaches that might be worthwhile.  First, install 4.00.35 as usually, then extract /usr/lib/sane/libsane* from the 4.00.36 driver package and use them to overwrite the 4.00.35 files.  Then test to see if scanning works.

Alternatively, install the 4.00.36 driver, then extract /usr/lib/libmfp.so* and/or /usr/lib/cups/backend/mfp from the 4.00.35 package and overwrite the 4.00.36 files.  You may want to test the libmfp and mfp bits separately, as the first could also impact scanning.

You can always restore the original files simply by re-installing the appropriate driver version.

Please share if some combination works.

[remon]

Installing 4.00.35 with /usr/lib/sane/libsane* from 4.00.36 did not work: instead of not finding a scanner, my scanning applications now crash.

Installing 4.00.36 with /usr/lib/cups/backend/mfp from 4.00.35 had no effect. The scanner works but the text is still blurred.

Installing 4.00.36 with /usr/lib/libmfp.so* (with or without /usr/lib/cups/backend/mfp) did not work either. The scanning application crashes and the text is sill blurred.

If the blur cannot be blamed on the /usr/lib/libmfp.so* and/or /usr/lib/cups/backend/mfp files, then mixing and matching with even higher and lower version will not fix it either, right? Do you have any other ideas to make the scanner visible with the 4.00.35 driver installed? The netdiscovery tool does find it.

[bchemnet]

Try installing /etc/sane.d/smfp.conf from the 4.00.36 driver package.  Possibly in conjuction with removing /etc/sane.d/xerox_mfp-smfp.conf (which can be restored by re-installing the driver-common package).  It may be that xerox_mfp support isn't working for some reason, but smfp support will.

You may need to restart saned for the change(s) to take effect (e.g., sudo service saned restart).

[remon]

I installed the smfp.conf file from 4.00.36 and removed the xerox_mfp-smfp.conf file. But when I try to restart saned, it says:
saned disabled; edit /etc/default/saned
So I tried a complete reboot, just to be safe, but the scanner is still not found. Note that I get the same message when I try to restart saned while the whole 4.00.36 driver is installed and the scanner actually works.

[bchemnet]

Supposedly this printer should work as a scanner without any of the Samsung driver components at all, but that may be only over USB and not over the network.  Based on your test results, it appears that some sort of real change occurred in the driver between 4.00.35 and 4.00.36 to add Samsung scanning support for the CLX-3175.  But since the relevant files don't play well when mixed with some of the 4.00.35 files, I can't think of anything else to try that would give you both good printing and scanning support except to simultaneously install both versions.  I'm unaware of any mechanism that would allow you to do that aside from using a virtual machine (e.g., via Virtual Box), and configuring one of the driver versions there.  So for example, you could print normally by keeping 4.00.35 installed on your main system, then start Virtual Box and scan via your virtual machine.

Not exactly elegant, but probably your only option at this point.