I have same problems as described in redhat bugzilla (url attached). In short: replacing '003-no-file-selected.patch' in '/usr/portage/distfiles/xsane-0.998-patches.tar.xz' with attached patch resolves problem for me. Reproducible: Always
Created attachment 297043 [details, diff] patch that resolves described problem
+*xsane-0.998-r1 (15 Jan 2012) + + 15 Jan 2012; Andreas K. Huettel <dilfridge@gentoo.org> -xsane-0.996.ebuild, + +xsane-0.998-r1.ebuild: + Fix working directory handling, bug 396127; drop old +