Please fix PLUGIN_FALLBACK_LOCATION variable in installer/pluginhandler.py with respect of new website

[zdohnal]

Hi,

moving to new website https://developers.hp.com/ makes hp plugin non-downloadable - this breaks installing any printer where hp plugin is needed - please fix it immediately. I cannot find hp plugin on your new website, so I cannot even create a temporary patch, which could fix it. Patch would be changing fallback url in installer/pluginhandler.py to the newest url, where we can find hp plugin.

[zdohnal (zdohnal)]

It crashes installation of every printer, which needs proprietary plugin, which isn't on openprinting.org site - that means everyone, who has hplip-3.17.6+.

[zdohnal (zdohnal)]

After more digging into it, I found out plugins disappeared for hplip-3.17.7 and hplip-3.17.9 (from 3.17 series, maybe some older releases may be missing too), which don't have plugins on openprinting.org. Can you please post these plugins on openprinting.org page too?

[Giacomo Tazzari (giact)]

I am facing the same problem: I've updated to 17.10 and hplip complained about needing to download the plugin, yet it's unable to find any and I cannot find one manually either.

Suddenly being unable to print is a serious drawback.
Is there any unofficial mirrors for those plugins? Has anyone found a workaround?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Joseph Florio (joeinslw)]

I agree with many of these people there is something wrong with the software, I have an old HP 1018 Laserjet that won't work either, have no idea why, but the only thing I can figure is that the driver was never installed on this OS.
It seems they somehow missed it, or forgot to load it because you can understand the newer versions of printers not having drivers, but the old ones, well that should be a no brainier i.e. included, but it's not there not even in the repository.
Somebody please explain that! Very disappointing especially to those who went ahead and donated to this project.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

A far as it looks for me the problem is not HP's site change. With every HPLIP release I (as the maintainer of the OpenPrinting web site) get the plugin e-mailed from a person of the HPLIP team and upload it to the appropriate place on the OpenPrinting web server. I checked and I actually got plugins for 3.17.6 and 3.17.10 (which I both have uploaded) but not for 3.17.7 and 3.17.9.

So the problem is that HP did not supply the plugin for 3.17.7 and 3.17.9.

[Giacomo Tazzari (giact)]

Ah ok, thank you!

As a workaround I manually installed HPLIP 3.17.10 and it found the plugin, and I can now print once again.

[zdohnal (zdohnal)]

Till,

issue is really with new website too - because hplip tries to download from two links: first from openprinting.com (where they stopped uploading plugin since 3.17.7 - here are reports where I told upstream about it https://bugs.launchpad.net/hplip/+bug/1708606 https://bugs.launchpad.net/hplip/+bug/1644932 , but without any reply), and then if first link fails it tries to download from www.hplipopensource.com, which provided plugins too (and upstream used it as workaround, because they didn't upload new plugin to openprinting.org before releasing new version, so it resulted in errors). IMHO both links should be working or at least that fallback HP one.
So fixing fallback HP link should be priority, then uploading missing plugins to openprinting.org should be done after that.

[zdohnal (zdohnal)]

3.17.7 and 3.17.9 plugins worked before introducing new website even if they weren't uploaded to openprinting.org, because they were downloadable from fallback HP link.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

I got the files now and uploaded them to OpenPrinting. Now everything should return to work.

[zdohnal (zdohnal)]

Good job, Till. Now only fixing fallback HP link remains (if plugins will be only on openprinting.org, then it will be impossible to download plugin if openprinting.org will be unaccessible).

[Shivani Mandora (shivani1709)]

3.17.7 and 3.17.9 plugins are uploaded to OpenPrinting. We would be fixing the fall back HP link issue at the earliest

[zdohnal (zdohnal)]

Thank you Shivani.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

Can someone from HP tell to what this PLUGIN_FALLBACK_LOCATION needs to be set in order to fix alreay released HPLIP versions (and where in HPLIP to fix it)?

[zdohnal (zdohnal)]

Till,

variable, which you are looking for, is in installer/pluginhandler.py on line 46. But I don't know new link too.

[Badal (badalkumar)]

Hi,
The PLUGIN_FALLBACK_LOCATION variable will be updated with the new hplip portal link which has the plugin files needed for installation and this change will be available as part of the 3.17.11 release before end of November.

[Shashank Kimothi (kim0-hplip)]

The Fallback location link is : https://developers.hp.com/sites/default/files/

Fix is present in HPLIP 3.22.4