How To Fix 'Filter failed' on cups jobs

[graemev]

The root cause of this has already been highlighted on this forum, but it may
not be clear that's what you got.


So you look on http://localhost:631/jobs/ and find lots of "hanging jobs"




The you may have bug [ Can't find a bug number, has anybody reported this?, but see below ]

If you do this:

$ lp -d PDF /etc/passwd

And see yet another job appear in the queue with "filter failed" they you've probably got this [unallocated] bug.

As a test do (as a normal user):

$ /usr/sbin/cupsfilter --list-filters /etc/passwd

texttopdf

Then

$ /usr/sbin/cupsfilter /etc/passwd> /tmp/passwd.pdf

DEBUG: argv[0]="cupsfilter"
DEBUG: argv[1]="1"
DEBUG: argv[2]="graeme"
DEBUG: argv[3]="passwd"
DEBUG: argv[4]="1"
DEBUG: argv[5]=""
DEBUG: argv[6]="/etc/passwd"
DEBUG: envp[0]="<CFProcessPath>"
DEBUG: envp[1]="CONTENT_TYPE=text/plain"
DEBUG: envp[2]="CUPS_DATADIR=/usr/share/cups"
...<elided>...
DEBUG: envp[14]="CHARSET=utf-8"
DEBUG: envp[15]="FINAL_CONTENT_TYPE=application/pdf"
INFO: texttopdf (PID 11531) started.
Unsupported OTF font / glyf table
Unsupported OTF font / cmap table
Unicode (3,1) cmap in format 4 not found
Unicode (3,1) cmap in format 4 not found
Unicode (3,1) cmap in format 4 not found
Unicode (3,1) cmap in format 4 not found
...<several thousand lines elided>....
Unicode (3,1) cmap in format 4 not found
Unicode (3,1) cmap in format 4 not found
Unicode (3,1) cmap in format 4 not found
Unsupported OTF font / glyf table
cupsfilter: fontembed/sfnt.c:683: otf_get_name: Assertion `0' failed.
ERROR: texttopdf (PID 11531) crashed on signal 6

Then you are looking at the issue highlighted here:
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/forum/...ttopdf-failing

It's a basic Ubuntu issue:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1240...truetype-fonts

The Bug (with fix) is here:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/quest...ith-fontconfig

In short add a file: /etc/fonts/local.conf :

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- /etc/fonts/local.conf file 05nov21 GPV to fix: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1240...truetype-fonts -->
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<selectfont>
<rejectfont>
<glob>/usr/share/fonts/truetype/noto/NotoColorEmoji.ttf</glob>
</rejectfont>
</selectfont>
</fontconfig>

(Replace GPV with your own initails :-)

Assuming you can drive an editor as root, then just do that. If you're CLI shy:

$ ls -l /etc/fonts/local.conf # Make sure you don't already have one (should say not found)


sudo bash -c cat > /etc/fonts/local.conf << EOF
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- /etc/fonts/local.conf file 05nov21 ${USER} to fix: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1240708/problem-with-cups-texttopdf-and-noto-truetype-fonts -->
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<selectfont>
<rejectfont>
<glob>/usr/share/fonts/truetype/noto/NotoColorEmoji.ttf</glob>
</rejectfont>
</selectfont>
</fontconfig>
EOF

The post also says to do :

fc-cache -f -v

To rebuild the font cache. It actually worked for me before I did that, but no harm in going the extra step.

After the fix:

/usr/sbin/cupsfilter /etc/passwd > /tmp/passwd.pdf-2.pdf

DEBUG: argv[0]="cupsfilter"
DEBUG: argv[1]="1"
DEBUG: argv[2]="graeme"
DEBUG: argv[3]="passwd"
DEBUG: argv[4]="1"
DEBUG: argv[5]=""
DEBUG: argv[6]="/etc/passwd"
DEBUG: envp[0]="<CFProcessPath>"
DEBUG: envp[1]="CONTENT_TYPE=text/plain"
DEBUG: envp[2]="CUPS_DATADIR=/usr/share/cups"
DEBUG: envp[3]="CUPS_FONTPATH=/usr/share/cups/fonts"
DEBUG: envp[4]="CUPS_SERVERBIN=/usr/lib/cups"
DEBUG: envp[5]="CUPS_SERVERROOT=/etc/cups"
DEBUG: envp[6]="LANG=en_GB.UTF8"
DEBUG: envp[7]="PATH=/usr/lib/cups/filter:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin"
DEBUG: envp[8]="PPD=/usr/share/cups/model/laserjet.ppd"
DEBUG: envp[9]="PRINTER_INFO=cupsfilter"
DEBUG: envp[10]="PRINTER_LOCATION=Unknown"
DEBUG: envp[11]="PRINTER=cupsfilter"
DEBUG: envp[12]="RIP_MAX_CACHE=128m"
DEBUG: envp[13]="USER=graeme"
DEBUG: envp[14]="CHARSET=utf-8"
DEBUG: envp[15]="FINAL_CONTENT_TYPE=application/pdf"
INFO: texttopdf (PID 13128) started.
INFO: texttopdf (PID 13128) exited with no errors.

Which is a much happier situation. And obviously the printing then worked (but nothing to see there).

[GreyGeek]

Graemev, you're hardly a newbie!
Nice display of Linux chops there! 👍

[JBloom]

Thank you very much!! I am a new Kubuntu user and had exactly this problem with my install earlier this week of Kubuntu 22.04. Followed the detailed instructions and saw exactly the same error messages. Followed the steps to correct it and my HP Envy 7645 printer now works!! Would point out that I am also running Xubuntu 22.10 on a different system and did not have this issue. Same printer just worked.