(Gutsy) Brother printer MFC-215 via USB does not print since upgrade to Gutsy

[Quark Green]

Binary package hint: cupsys

Printing was fine in Fiesty. As soon as I upgraded to Gutsy final when it was released (I did not upgrade to any of the developmental versions of Gutsy) the printer stopped printing. The printer appears to be recognised and configured properly in System-> Printing and the computer goes through all the visible steps when sending something to the printer from OpenOffice Writer for example. The printer icon appears in the system area, the job appears in the printer window, then disappears, but nothing comes out on the printer. The printer icon remains in the system area however. I deleted and re-added the printer but no change. I also disconnected the printer, rebooted and reconnected the printer, no obvious wizard showed up to announce detection of the printer, but when I opened System->Printing the printer was somehow detected and configured there, but again no output on the printer.

[Pascal De Vuyst (pascal-devuyst)]

Thanks for your bug report.
Please provide the output of the printingbug info script and your cups error_log as described here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingPrintingProblems.

[Quark Green (quark-green-deactivatedaccount)]

Attached as requested.

[Pascal De Vuyst (pascal-devuyst)]

Please provide the output of the following commands:
$ ls -l /dev/usb/lp*
$ ls -l /var/cache/cups/ppds.dat
$ id

[Quark Green (quark-green-deactivatedaccount)]

$ ls -l /dev/usb/lp*
crw-rw---- 1 root lp 180, 0 2007-10-21 22:41 /dev/usb/lp0

$ ls -l /var/cache/cups/ppds.dat
-rw------- 1 root lp 459776 2007-05-04 13:34 /var/cache/cups/ppds.dat

$ id
uid=1000(ftmsi) gid=1000(administrator) groups=4(adm),20(dialout),24(cdrom),25(floppy),29(audio),30(dip),44(video),46(plugdev),104(scanner),112(netdev),113(lpadmin),115(powerdev),117(admin),1000(administrator),1002(elfr),1003(sgtais)

[Lukasz Bruun (mail-lukasz)]

Could be related to : https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openoffice.org/+bug/153295

I posted a solution.

[Pascal De Vuyst (pascal-devuyst)]

Does it work after running the following command:
$ sudo chmod g+rw /var/cache/cups/ppds.dat

[mikko (mikko-)]

Which drivers do you use?
Ubuntu's standard or have you downloaded MFC-210 driver from Brother linux support page?

Is this only openoffice problem or printing doesn't work at all?

[Quark Green (quark-green-deactivatedaccount)]

Pascal: I'll try it and let you know.

mikko: The MFC-210 driver from Brother linux support page. Does Ubuntu have a standard driver that can work with this printer? And printing doesn't work at all.

[mikko (mikko-)]

I have DCP7010 and if don't install Brother's own drivers, Ubuntu wants to install DCP7025 -driver shipped with Ubuntu. And it doesn't work. That's why I asked what's your driver.
Do you use the latest Brother drivers? Some months ago I noticed many drivers were updated.

This sound similar to
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openoffice.org/+bug/153295

but in my machine all other programs print fine, only openoffice is problem. No errors or crashes, printer starts to print and then stops. Do you have lcd-screen in your printer? If yes, is there any messages? My printer says "Receiving Data" and then after some seconds "Sleep" when I try to print from openoffice.

sudo chmod g+rw /var/cache/cups/ppds.dat doesn't help

Because I had this same problem and it was fixed some weeks ago and now it came back, something have happened to cupsys or openoffice in last two weeks. I haven't used openoffice for a many days so I can't say when it stopped to print. But about two weeks ago it worked.

[Quark Green (quark-green-deactivatedaccount)]

I noticed a change when I booted up today, before trying any of the above suggestions. The print jobs now stall in the "Document print status" window with the status showing as "pending". When I try to cancel the jobs I get the following error:

CUPS server error
There was an error during the CUPS operation: 'client-error-not-possible'.

[mikko (mikko-)]

My problems are gone, I don't why. But I was able to print from openoffice today.

Quark, have you seen this:
http://www.cups.org/articles.php?L291+I10+TFAQ+M10+P1+Q

I noticed these lines in your error_log:
D [21/Oct/2007:16:55:23 +0000] [Job 145] sed: can't read /usr/local/Brother//inf/brMFC210Crc: Permission denied
D [21/Oct/2007:16:55:24 +0000] [Job 145] sed: can't read /usr/local/Brother//inf/brMFC210Crc: Permission denied
D [21/Oct/2007:16:55:24 +0000] [Job 145] Error: /usr/local/Brother//inf/brMFC210Crc :cannot open file !!

Why there's two "/" letters between Brother and inf, it should be /usr/local/Brother/inf/brMFC210Crc
Maybe there's a little typing error in Brother or cups drivers??

[Quark Green (quark-green-deactivatedaccount)]

Pascal: I tried "$ sudo chmod g+rw /var/cache/cups/ppds.dat" but it didn't make a difference.

mikko: Yes the MFC-215 has a lcd screen, but it doesn't show any messages since the printing problem started.

Lukasz: I tried your solution but it didn't make a difference either unfortunately. Except I couldn't find the file "cupsd.conf.dist_upgrade" so I used "cupsd.conf.default" instead.

Also since I booted up today, the print jobs don't get stuck in the "Document print status" window anymore, they show up there with a status of "processing" then disappear but no print comes out.

[Kai Schroeder (kai-schroeder)]

I had the same problem
the file /usr/local/Brother/inf/brMFC210Crc had the following permissions (probably changed during the upgrade to gutsy)

-rw------- 1 cupsys lp 320 2007-11-01 13:33 brMFC210Crc

sudo chmod g+r /usr/local/Brother/inf/brMFC210Crc

fixed it for me

[Pascal De Vuyst (pascal-devuyst)]

Gutsy is no longer supported, closing this bug.
Please upgrade to a supported Ubuntu release!
The Brother drivers including MFC-215C have been packed in Ubuntu multiverse since hardy (see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BrotherDriverPackaging).