Bug 32829 – lp: unable to get major 6 (this shows up sometimes (not sure when/why) in dmesg) ; client-error-not-possible (when trying to print, this message comes from cups web tool)

• Status: RESOLVED FIXED
• Product: Gentoo Linux

[Description Eric Schoeller 2003-11-05 14:35:23 UTC]

doing an echo 'blah blah' > file; cat file > /dev/lp0 works fine, i just have 
to hit the online button on the printer for it to print.
I have emerged several things to try and get full support for an HP laserjet 4L.
CUPS, hpijs, x11-base, ghostscript, and all relevant dependant ebuilds.
CUPS runs fine, i can add the printer from within CUPS and using foomatic 
configure with no errors. I have tried configuring this printer with raw, 
hpijs, ljet4 and the CUPS hp laserjet printer drivers. All yield one line of 
garbage, however usually different. I ALWAYS have to push the online switch to 
get the job printed completely. sometimes there are human readable statements 
in the garbage such as setpagecount and pagefont.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.Printing from windows clients (samba), printing from the CUPS web interface 
(test page) all fail with the same results
2. Removing and reinstalling the printer using both foomatic and CUPS web 
interface and different drivers always adds the printer, but they never print 
successfully
3. I have tried changing the paralell port mode in the bios from Normal -> EPP -
> ECP , with no change except for the fact that the plip driver is used for EPP 
and ECP and i get warnings about it not using IRQs.

Actual Results:  
Same results. Garbage out of the printer - different garbage most of the time 
but garbage nonetheless. This reminds me of using the wrong printer driver, or 
a damaged printer driver in windows - however this is my first time setting up 
printing in linux, so it could be related to something else...

Expected Results:  
Should have queued and sent a job to the printer, it should have printed the 
page with no garbage and i should not have had to press the online button 
everytime to start the job (i heard a mention of a ^L but i couldnt even get 
that to work)


System Information:
AMD K6-200 
VX-Pro II chipset, single paralell port
16MB ram ( i realize this is a major issue - the system just crawls as it tries 
to spool a job to the printer, i am getting more ram i didnt think this would 
effect the general behavior more just the performance.)

emerge --info
Portage 2.0.48-r5 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.2.3, glibc-2.3.2-r1)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.4.20-gentoo-r7 i586 AMD-K6tm w/ multimedia extensions
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.oregonstate.edu 
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /var/qmail/control /usr/share/config /usr/kde/2/share/confi
g /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/env.d"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY=""
USE="x86 oss apm arts avi crypt encode foomaticdb gif gpm gtk imlib jpeg kde 
gnome libg++ libwww mad mikmod motif mpeg ncurses nls oggvorbis pdflib png qt 
quicktime sdl slang spell svga truetype xml2 xmms xv zlib gdbm berkdb readline 
X tcpd pam ssl perl python opengl cups"
COMPILER="gcc3"
CHOST="i486-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-O3 -mcpu=i686 -funroll-loops -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="-O3 -mcpu=i686 -funroll-loops -pipe"
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
FEATURES="sandbox ccache"

printers.conf
# Printer configuration file for CUPS v1.1.19
# Written by cupsd on Tue Nov  4 18:20:04 2003
<DefaultPrinter HP4L>
Info HP LaserJet
DeviceURI parallel:/dev/lp0
State Idle
Accepting Yes
JobSheets none none
QuotaPeriod 0
PageLimit 0
KLimit 0
</Printer>

services running: midentd, cupsd, sshd, agetty, metalog, devfsd, dhcpcd

[Comment 1 Heinrich Wendel (RETIRED) 2003-11-06 11:43:11 UTC]

The recommended driver for HP LaserJet 4L is hpijs, did you try this one?
(foomatic-configure -s cups -p HP-LaserJet_4L -c file:/dev/lp0 -n HP4L -d
hpijs)

[Comment 2 Eric Schoeller 2003-11-10 13:45:50 UTC]

Heinrich:
Yes i did try to configure the printer using foomatic and the hpijs driver.
i still have to press the online button for it to print and i still get garbage
out of the printer.
any suggestions?

[Comment 3 Eric Schoeller 2003-11-11 13:25:12 UTC]

I have recompiled the kernel, removing some paralell IDE options and i also
added 116MB of ram to the machine. I still have problems printing using the
foomatic configured printer (HP lasterjet 4L)
If it helps (although i doubt that it will), here is the 'garbage' that results
from trying to print a test page from within the cups web administration:

;%-12345;%-12345xpjl set pageprotc

Thanks!

[Comment 4 Heinrich Wendel (RETIRED) 2003-11-13 05:35:03 UTC]

set loglevel to debug in cupsd.conf and post a cups error_log

[Comment 5 Eric Schoeller 2003-11-16 20:49:04 UTC]

Please see this error log for the described problem:
http://www.plek.net/error_log
thanks!

[Comment 6 Heinrich Wendel (RETIRED) 2003-11-19 12:42:43 UTC]

hm, try to rebuild ghostscript, and foomatic-filters

[Comment 7 Eric Schoeller 2003-11-25 14:15:21 UTC]

rebuilt both of these packages, still no difference. Recompiled the kernel too - changed lpt printer modes in bios. The LPT interface is wired by a ribbon cable to the motherboard where it connects to a pin interface. I thought that maybe this had been connected backwards - so i flipped it, but it made things rather worse - cups kept saying paralell port busy. so i switched it back and now its printing garbage again.  

[Comment 8 Heinrich Wendel (RETIRED) 2003-11-29 12:11:16 UTC]

hm, this sux ;)

please try cups-1.1.20 and ghostscript-7.07.1

[Comment 9 Eric Schoeller 2003-12-02 23:10:46 UTC]

updated portage, and cups to 1.1.20, ghostscript-7.07.1

still no change :(
yes, this really does suck. 

[Comment 10 Heinrich Wendel (RETIRED) 2004-01-17 09:44:38 UTC]

could you get it work meanwhile?

[Comment 11 Eric Schoeller 2004-01-30 15:42:04 UTC]

Yes, it seems like the high quality belkin printer cable i purchased must have been defective because i swapped it out finally with a cable i found in a dumpster and it worked just fine
grrr!
but it works perfectly, even with samba!
thanks for your help