[Pkg-cups-devel] Bug#686653: HP Deskjet broken in Wheezy

[Brian Potkin]

On Tue 04 Sep 2012 at 11:48:26 +0100, Steve McIntyre wrote:

> Hi,

Hi Steve,
 
> There are possibly several bugs in one here, but I'll leave it up to
> the maintainers to split them as appropriate. I'm not an expert on
> CUPS at all.

Me neither.
 
> Previously in Squeeze I had an HP Deskjet F300 working very well -
> it's an all-in-one inkjet printer / scanner. I've recently upgraded to
> Wheezy and when I came to use the printer (to print out a DVD cover
> from inkscape) it has stopped working.
> 
> My first warning that things had changed was that the normal print
> options had changed. I used to get quite a wide range of output
> options in terms of quality, choice of cartridge and paper. Now I've
> got a different set of options which don't quite map the same. If I
> try to choose "High-Resolution Photo" the print dialog complains "Some
> of the settings in the dialog conflict". Hmmm, weird. Choose "Normal
> color" and hit print. Nothing happens.

The complaint is probably because "High-Resolution Photo" conflicts with
choosing plain paper instead of photo paper.
 
> Check the dialog again and I can see a status display for the printer
> saying "Rendering completed". Leave it a few minutes, still nothing
> comes out of the printer. CUPS on localhost:631 tells me the
> same. /var/log/cups/error_log has a few lines complaining:
> 
> E [04/Sep/2012:10:04:50 +0100] Filter "pstoraster" not found.
> E [04/Sep/2012:10:04:57 +0100] Filter "pstoraster" not found.
> 
> etc., then *lots* of errors like:
> 
> W [04/Sep/2012:10:06:02 +0100] failed to CreateProfile: org.freedesktop.ColorManager.AlreadyExists:profile id 'HP_Deskjet_F300_series-Gray..' already exists
> W [04/Sep/2012:10:06:02 +0100] failed to CreateProfile: org.freedesktop.ColorManager.AlreadyExists:profile id 'HP_Deskjet_F300_series-RGB..' already exists
> W [04/Sep/2012:10:06:02 +0100] failed to CreateDevice: org.freedesktop.ColorManager.AlreadyExists:device id 'cups-HP_Deskjet_F300_series' already exists
> 
> Yet... printing a test page from the CUPS web interface worked
> flawlessly.

Not printing is likely not to be a cups bug. Please see #664031 and
#682755.

> Checking the settings there, I could see that apparently I was now
> using "hpcups" whereas previously I was using "hpijs". I deleted and
> recreated the printer, now I saw I could have the option of either
> hpijs or hpcups. I selected hpijs again and (woo!) I can see the old
> paper/cartridge etc. options are back. I can print from inkscape again!
> 
> Oh, except I could now seeing lots of banding on the output. It looked
> like I need to clean the heads. Tried that through the web interface,
> nothing happened on the printer. Status message:
> 
> Idle - "Invalid printer command "Clean"."

LP #918411 explains it better than I could:

   https://bugs.launchpad.net/hplip/+bug/918411

Again, not a cups bug.
 
> Great. Try the HP tools, as I've used in the past.
> 
> "hp-clean" gives me
> 
>   error: Unable to communicate with device (code=12): hp:/usb/Deskjet_F300_series?serial=CN76CGW0YP04KH
>   error:  Unable to open device hp:/usb/Deskjet_F300_series?serial=CN76CGW0YP04KH.
> 
> when I ask it to clean the heads. "hp-info" prints the same errors.

A user has to be a member of the lp group. Please see the NEWS file in
the documentation for hplip.

> So, to summarise:
> 
>  * The upgrade from squeeze to wheezy looks like it changed print
>    driver without warning (to one that didn't work!)

I can reproduce this by creating a print queue on Squeeze using the PPD
file for hp-deskjet_f300_series-hpijs and then upgrading to Wheezy. This
PPD file is replaced by the one for hpcups without altering the file name
in /etc/cups/ppd. I guess this is something to do with updating the PPDs
but don't know exactly where to look. Hence the Cc:.

Thank you for your report.

Regards,

Brian.