[Pkg-cups-devel] Bug#505774: cups: specifying a ppd file produces no output whereas the generic postscript driver prints successfully

[Chiaki]

Package: cups
Version: 1.3.8-1lenny2
Severity: normal


(I don't believe this is related to an I18N but who knows.)

I am trying to set up cups printing system that talks to
a remote postscript printer.

I found that
 - if I specify the PPD file offered by the printer maker for
   windows users, nothing is output.
   Not even an error message left in the /var/log logging files, etc..

 - using the generic postscript driver successfully prints
   output.

I tried specifying PPD file first and
found that the printing produced nothing.

This is very confusing.

Until I check the operation of other
GNU/Linux-based  machine (which uses fedora core 6 distribution)
which can print on the printer
and found that it uses the generic postscript driver, and
tried the generic postscript driver under Debian, and found that
now cups prints output successfully, I was very confused.

I have no idea which program/module/configuration file is to blame.
But cups was supposed to make life easier for sysadmin regarding printer
administration. So a proper error message is required.

What was more confusing is that
after the setting of PPD, I think the initial
test print done via cups web interface seems to
succeed (more or less. I think the top margin position
is slightly off and the whole image is shifted downward
a little too much, I think.) (???WHY???)

However, nothing gets printed if I choose the printer when
I try to print something from the other applications such as
 - mozilla firefox browser,
 - openoffice writer, calc, etc.,
 - adobe acroread pdf reader program, etc..

Does test print uses a slightly different path/tool chain to
produce output on the printer?

I can post the PPD file on request.
(I checked the ppd file using cupstestppd and
 it only prints one warning. I modified the ppd
 file to reduce the number of warnings from the initial three to one.
 Still no luck.
 I think PPD file is read properly because cups shows all
 the bells and whistles of the printer features after PPD is specified.)

In any case, cups system ought to
 print something in the message log file(s) so that
 we can tell what went wrong. There was not a trace of
 error/warning message in the log files as far as I can tell.

I may be able to add strace to programs
to figure out what went wrong if proper suggestions
are made as to what configuration file(s) to change, etc..

I searched the web pages and found that there were people
- who had a broken PPD that was pronounced incorrect bycupstestppd program, or
- who had errors due to mis-configuration (permission, etc.),

but they had proper error messages in the log files.

Or am I configuring cups in an incorrect manner from the web interface?
(If I specify PPD, the cups interface automatically moves to the next screen.
There was no choice of any special driver.)

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.24-etchnhalf.1-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=ja_JP.ujis, LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.ujis (charmap=EUC-JP)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages cups depends on:
ii  adduser               3.110              add and remove users and groups
ii  cups-common           1.3.8-1lenny2      Common UNIX Printing System(tm) -
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0] 1.5.22             Debian configuration management sy
ii  ghostscript           8.62.dfsg.1-3.1    The GPL Ghostscript PostScript/PDF
ii  libavahi-compat-libdn 0.6.22-3           Avahi Apple Bonjour compatibility
ii  libc6                 2.7-15             GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libcups2              1.3.8-1lenny2      Common UNIX Printing System(tm) -
ii  libcupsimage2         1.3.8-1lenny2      Common UNIX Printing System(tm) -
ii  libdbus-1-3           1.2.1-4            simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libgnutls26           2.4.2-1            the GNU TLS library - runtime libr
ii  libkrb53              1.6.dfsg.4~beta1-4 MIT Kerberos runtime libraries
ii  libldap-2.4-2         2.4.11-1           OpenLDAP libraries
ii  libpam0g              1.0.1-4            Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii  libpaper1             1.1.23+nmu1        library for handling paper charact
ii  libslp1               1.2.1-7.4          OpenSLP libraries
ii  lsb-base              3.2-20             Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip
ii  perl-modules          5.10.0-16          Core Perl modules
ii  poppler-utils [xpdf-u 0.8.7-1            PDF utilitites (based on libpopple
ii  procps                1:3.2.7-8          /proc file system utilities
ii  ssl-cert              1.0.23             simple debconf wrapper for OpenSSL

Versions of packages cups recommends:
ii  avahi-utils           0.6.22-3           Avahi browsing, publishing and dis
ii  cups-client           1.3.8-1lenny2      Common UNIX Printing System(tm) -
ii  foomatic-filters      3.0.2-20080211-3.2 OpenPrinting printer support - fil
ii  smbclient             2:3.2.4-1          a LanManager-like simple client fo

Versions of packages cups suggests:
ii  cups-bsd                1.3.8-1lenny2    Common UNIX Printing System(tm) -
pn  cups-driver-gutenprint  <none>           (no description available)
pn  cups-pdf                <none>           (no description available)
ii  foomatic-db             20080211-2+nmu1  OpenPrinting printer support - dat
ii  foomatic-db-engine      3.0.2-20080211-1 OpenPrinting printer support - pro
pn  hplip                   <none>           (no description available)
pn  xpdf-korean | xpdf-japa <none>           (no description available)

-- debconf information:
  cupsys/raw-print: true
  cupsys/backend: ipp, lpd, parallel, socket, usb






-- 
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while(*i)((j+=(int)strchr(t,*i++)-(int)t),(j%=sizeof t-1),
(putchar(t[j])));return 0;}/* under GPL */