Printer problem

[royleith]

My network-connected, HP colour laser CP3505 has worked like magic until installing Oneiric. Since then, the two machines using Oneiric have had major printing problems. The printer seems to be installed correctly with the recommended driver, but attempts at printing anything (e.g. from Scribus or a browser) result in the printer config page reporting that the printer cannot do IPP2.0 and that IPP1.1 will be tried. Annoyingly, using the systems settings printer config page to print out a test page works like a dream!

Every now and then something prints out after a very long wait. Usually, however, CUPS disables the printer and the printer has a complete software crash that cannot be reset. It just sits there with a 'Processing' message displayed until it is powered down and then up again.

I have installed and reinstalled the printer a few times, but to no avail. I tried the old hpiis driver using CPL and managed to print out the odd page, but it is very slow. Even when something prints out, the item does not necessarily disappear from the print queue. The print queue usually shows the item with an unknown user, an unknown document, 0k in size, the correct printer, and an unknown submission time.

On one of the machines, the printer installation wizard usually crashes after printer installation or printer option settings, but the printer looks fine in the CUPS configuration pages.

The fact that the same problem occurs on two very different machines suggests to me that this is not just some sort of installation snafu. One of the machines is on its third install because of other problems.

I know that other folk have had problems with the KDE printer system settings crashing at the end of printer installation, but has anyone else had actual printing problems?

Regards
Roy Leith

[royleith]

Re: Printer problem - Workaround

The problem seems more to do with networking than with the Cups system. By ignoring the instance of the network printer shown at 'add new printer' and using the IP address (which I chose to be manual) and the LPD/Jetdirect route, I now have a printer that works quickly and well.

I am using Windows, atm, and my inky fingers testify to trying to get my old HP inkjet to work, so forgive me if my memory of the Linux configuration used is a little wrong.

The problem may also be related to problems I am having with Samba and smb4k.

Regards
Roy Leith

[rec9140]

Re: Printer problem

goto synaptic or apt-get and install hplip-gui (which will install Xsane for scanning and a few other things that are not in the base for some reason)

This will install the HPLIP software that makes HP printers,just work, period. AIO will scan and fax and print. Printers will print, and the only problem I've had with it was a minor bug which was solved by release time.

I wouldn't purchase anything but HP printers or AIO for my own use. REAL hardware printers with PC and PS in hardware and not wimprinters. Even my multi $$$$ Sharp's are REAL hardware PCL and PS. I can't use all the features in Linux like scanning via XSane, but fully 90% of their features are in the standard CUPS PDD's.


Give HPLIP a try, and if so you may wish to add the HPLIP PPA, ( https://launchpad.net/~hplip-isv/+archive/ppa ) although they hadn't updated the PPA to 11.10 yet, the regular repo versions seem to be most current right now, but this won't be the same for long.

[royleith]

Re: Printer problem

I have had no further problems since using my work-around. However, I have just loaded the hplip-gui and it seems to work well. I will give it a try on this new machine.

Regards
Roy Leith