Evince PDF doesn't print, yet Writer prints just fine

[Martin Vysny]

I have the Canon PIXMA IP7250 printer installed. When I plug it via the USB cable, the printer driver seems autodetected incorrectly: Canon iP7200 series - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.11 , however printing of the test page succeeds and the test page is printed successfully. Writer is also able to print the documents correctly. However printing PDFs via Evince does absolutely nothing - the printing job seems to get executed correctly, however the printer power led just blinks two times and that's it - no error message is produced, no segfault, no feedback, nothing.

The really interesting thing is that on another laptop with Ubuntu 16.10 the printer works correctly and prints the PDF without any problem. I am totally at loss what to google for or where to search for possible solutions as there is no error message :(

Thanks for any tip.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.10
Package: cups 2.2.0-2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.8.0-32.34-generic 4.8.11
Uname: Linux 4.8.0-32-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.3-0ubuntu8.2
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Tue Dec 27 16:08:05 2016
Lpstat: device for iP7200-series: usb://Canon/iP7200%20series?serial=0100CA
MachineType: Hewlett-Packard HP EliteBook 8460p
Papersize: a4
PpdFiles: Error: command ['fgrep', '-H', '*NickName', '/etc/cups/ppd/iP7200-series.ppd'] failed with exit code 2: grep: /etc/cups/ppd/iP7200-series.ppd: Permission denied
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.8.0-32-generic root=UUID=20d1b3dc-793d-4f98-b4b4-b9d6e062c35a ro nosplash
SourcePackage: cups
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to yakkety on 2016-12-27 (0 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 08/04/2014
dmi.bios.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.bios.version: 68SCF Ver. F.50
dmi.board.name: 161C
dmi.board.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.board.version: KBC Version 97.4D
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: CZC23317TB
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnHewlett-Packard:bvr68SCFVer.F.50:bd08/04/2014:svnHewlett-Packard:pnHPEliteBook8460p:pvrA0001D02:rvnHewlett-Packard:rn161C:rvrKBCVersion97.4D:cvnHewlett-Packard:ct10:cvr:
dmi.product.name: HP EliteBook 8460p
dmi.product.version: A0001D02
dmi.sys.vendor: Hewlett-Packard

[Martin Vysny (vyzivus)]

There actually is a much closer match of the driver for the printer: PIXMA IP 7250. Tried to change the driver for the printer, nothing gets changed: the test page and writer still prints fine, while printing PDF prints nothing

[Martin Vysny (vyzivus)]

Oh damn. Apparently Evince remembered some creepy settings in its print-settings file, which caused the printer to go crazy. Removing ~/.config/evince/print-settings fixed the issue for me.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

Thank you for the hint with removing ~/.config/evince/print-settings I have added it to

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingPrintingProblems#Known_bugs

now.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

With removing ~/.config/evince/print-settings solving the problem this looks moe like a bug in GTK or evince for me. Moving ...

[Martin Vysny (vyzivus)]

Thank you for your reply! I think Evince cannot know which settings are "bad" - this should be the job of maybe CUPS or the printer driver. So I'm not sure how Evince can help here... Of course Evince can implement a workaround for this:

1. remember the printing settings per printer;
2. Add a button to the printing dialog which resets the settings to the default values.

Thanks again, and all the best in 2017 ;)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Seems like it was an user config error then (or a printer driver one for allowing setting an option that makes the printer bug)