can't change print quality

Bug #26122 reported by Andrea Garbarini
14
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
gnome-cups-manager (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Medium
Martin Pitt
libgnomeprintui (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Medium
Unassigned

Bug Description

I can't seem to change the print quality for my hp-1160 laserjet through the
gnome-cups-manager front end. I tried renebling cups' web interface and
everything works fine from there though. I noticed the printer's ppd file in
/etc/cups/ppd won't even be modified after applying changes in the
gnome-cups-manager, of course this is not the case when changing prefs through
the web interface. I tried running the app as root but still no luck. If this
might be of any help, I get the following on standard output:

Selected ppd file = foomatic-ppds/HP/HP-2000C-hpijs.ppd.gz
Selected ppd file = foomatic-ppds/HP/HP-LaserJet_1160-hpijs.ppd.gz

Can't see what the first ppd has got to do with my printer =)

(on stderr i get nothing but complains about multiple printers sharing the same
driver, I can post a log if this might be of some interest)

Regards, Andrea

Revision history for this message
Daniel Robitaille (robitaille) wrote :

*** Bug 26123 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Revision history for this message
Senko Rasic (senko) wrote :

The files in /etc/cups/ppd contain systemwide configuration for the
printers. Per-user options are stored in ~/.loptions file. The
gnome-cups-manager correctly updates this file.

Senko

Revision history for this message
Andrea Garbarini (garba) wrote :

I am sorry but I find this overly confusing: the gnome-cups-manager is listed in
the "administration" menu, and since I belong to the lpadmin group, I thought
changes made through the gcm would be applied system-wide... Anyway, there's no
.lpoptions dir in my home folder... that is, i can't change print quality
through the gcm, be it system-wide or on a per-user basis

Revision history for this message
Andrea Garbarini (garba) wrote :

sorry i thought that .lpoptions was a dir... the file is there, it gets updated
accordingly, but it just gets ignored... it's likely the problem lies with the
lp fronted then, i'm out of clues

Revision history for this message
Pascal De Vuyst (pascal-devuyst) wrote :

What application did you use to print?

You can debug foomatic-rip to find out more.
Edit /etc/foomatic/filter.conf and set debug: 1.
After printing something look at the file /tmp/foomatic-rip.log. This should indicate the printing options you have set using gnome-cups-manager.

Revision history for this message
Andrea Garbarini (garba) wrote :

I checked the foomatic log file and the print quality there is shown as set to "normal", though in gnome-cups-manager it was set to high... it looks like it's gnome's apps which are affected by this problem, I have no problems when printing from firefox. And in the openoffice's printing dialog, the settings are properly "imported" from gnome-cups-manager. I have a HP laserjet 1160 and I am willing to do all the testing you need, let's please fix printing in dapper =)

Revision history for this message
Pascal De Vuyst (pascal-devuyst) wrote :

Reopening this bug.

I'm using Dapper 20060322
gnome-cups-manager 0.31-1.1ubuntu1

I confirm that printer options set by gnome-cups-manager in ~/.lpoptions are not applied when printing from gnome applications.

Printer options set with CUPS web interface directly change the configured PPD in /etc/cups/ppd.

The way I see it there are 2 possible solutions:
* gnome-cups-manager should directly change printer options in the configured PPD like CUPS does. This is the recommend way since it will work with every application understanding PPDs.
* Or gnome applications (libgnomeprintui) should make use of printer options in ~/.lpoptions.

Changed in gnome-cups-manager:
status: Rejected → Confirmed
Changed in libgnomeprintui:
status: Unconfirmed → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Andrea Garbarini (garba) wrote :

hello Pascal, thx for reopening this bug, I believe that a user belonging to the lpadming group should be given the chance to change the printer options system wide i.e. modify the corresponding ppd file in /etc/cups/ppd through the gnome-cups-manager GUI, but this would imply some extra, non-trivial work on the app... on the other hand, for consistency's sake, libgnomeprintui should be fixed to get along nicely with ~/.lpoptions... regards, andre

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

one task is enough

Changed in libgnomeprintui:
status: Confirmed → Rejected
Changed in gnome-cups-manager:
assignee: debzilla → pitti
Revision history for this message
Holger Arnold (holgerarnold) wrote :

On my system, gnome-cups-manager deletes the file ~/.lpoptions whenever I change a setting.

Revision history for this message
Jens Berke (jensberke) wrote :

I have this bug on a freshly installed Dapper Release Candidate 1. On my system I don't have a ~/.loptions file at all. Whatever setting I change with gnome-cups-manager, it seems to be stored somewhere, because it shows up next time I start gnome-cups-manager. However, checking with CUPS through http://localhost:631 still shows the initial printer settings from the time the printer was created. The latter ones seem to be used by all GNOME apps. Printing different qualites with OpenOffice works fine, however.

Dapper is a great so far, but not being able to change the print quality (and therefore wasting lot of expensive ink) is a big drawback, I think. It will make some people rant about Linux and prevent some from dropping Windows (I just killed my Windows partition trusting Dapper's quality, regretting it now a little bit). I'd vote for having it fixed with Dapper release. Alas I don't have the knowledge to help fixing it.

Regards,
Jens

Revision history for this message
Andrea Garbarini (garba) wrote :

This is preventing people from using their printers in a decent manner, I can't understand how dapper could reach rc1 status when still affected by such a serious issue, please devs do dot underestimate the bad impression this problem might give to new users. We're going to end up with a horde of people complaining about printing in dapper being broken. I am sorry if I am abusing the bug report but you should realize printing is crucial in a dekstop OS. Thanks. Best regards, andre

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

Andrea, we understand your concern, but you should also understand that we inherit lot of code from upstream and sometime that code is not perfect and require work. The issue is that we get lot of bugs and only few people for that number so we tend to be really busy, the best you can to make sure that's fixed is to find somebody not work overloaded with some interest to fix that and send a patch

Revision history for this message
Jens Berke (jensberke) wrote :

The bug seems that to be related to this one:
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/libgnomecups/+bug/34112

Revision history for this message
Martin Pitt (pitti) wrote :

Closing as a duplicate

Changed in gnome-cups-manager:
status: Confirmed → Rejected
To post a comment you must log in.
This report contains Public information  
Everyone can see this information.

Other bug subscribers

Remote bug watches

Bug watches keep track of this bug in other bug trackers.