cups converts multiple times between pdf and ps

[FriedChicken]

Binary package hint: cups

I guess this bug could be related to bug #382379 but as I'm not really shure I didn't append to that pretty overloaded bug.

Printing a PDF can take very long (and I'm not shure if the print jobs really end successfully). I have tried three cases:

CASE 1:
I have a PDF (a converted PowerPoint presentation, about 125 slides, 10 MB). The PDF mainly consists of text, formula and vector graphics. There are a few JPGs in it, too, but they are low resolution only.

As more than 120 pages is very much to print and the font size is big, too, I wanted to print 2 slides on one DIN A4 page. Okular (or kprinter?) has a function for this so I tried to use it.

After about 1 hour I didn't have at least one printed page but a CPU intensive gs process running and a temporary PS file that was far bigger than 200 MB.
After some more waiting I cancelled the printing job.

CASE 2:
I had the suspicion that gs processed each file as seperate image to fit two of them on one page. So I tried Adobe reader togive out a ps file with 2 slides on one page hoping that this application is a bit more efficient.

It really is more efficient and the resulting PS file was "just" about 130 MB which I guess is not too bad if the Reader has converted some vector grafics into rasterized images (for compatibility reasons for example). I expected it should be no big problem to print out this "printer ready" PS file... So I opened in Okular and tried to print it. But after some time the printing wasn't even started and it took a closer look at the processes running:

$ ps -fA | grep gs
lp 3991 2481 0 19:27 ? 00:00:00 /bin/sh /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstopdf 433 dominic Physik 1_1 1 [...] /var/spool/cups/d00433-001
lp 3992 2481 0 19:27 ? 00:00:00 Brother_DCP-120C 433 dominic Physik 1_1 1 BRColorEnhancement=ON [...]
lp 3993 2481 0 19:27 ? 00:00:00 /bin/sh /usr/lib/cups/filter/cpdftocps 433 dominic Physik 1_1 1 BRColor[...]
lp 3994 2481 0 19:27 ? 00:00:00 /bin/csh /usr/lib/cups/filter/brlpdwrapperDCP110C 433 dominic Physik 1_1 1 [...]
root 3995 2481 0 19:27 ? 00:00:00 usb://Brother/DCP-120C 433 dominic Physik 1_1 1 [...]
lp 4058 3991 61 19:28 ? 00:00:07 gs -dSAFER -dCompatibilityLevel=1.3 -dAutoRotatePages=/None -dAutoFilterColorImages=false -dNOPLATFONTS -dPARANOIDSAFER -sstdout=%stderr -dColorImageFilter=/FlateEncode -dPDFSETTINGS=/printer -dDoNumCopies -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sstdout=%stderr -sOutputFile=- -dSAFER -dCompatibilityLevel=1.3 -dAutoRotatePages=/None -dAutoFilterColorImages=false -dNOPLATFONTS -dPARANOIDSAFER -sstdout=%stderr -dColorImageFilter=/FlateEncode -dPDFSETTINGS=/printer -dDoNumCopies -c .setpdfwrite -f -

(Cups is process 2481)

So it seems as if the printer ready PS file is converted to PDF and back to PS again by Cups and that gs is processing it in some way, too.
This semed very inefficeinto me so I canceled the printing job again as it probably wouldn't be processed any time soon.

CASE 3:
I thought maybe Okular and Cups couldn't communicate that the file was already ready for printing. So I tried to print the file directly using "lp" - but the problem was the same. And also printing diectly from Adobe Reader had this effect (but I guess this is hardly surprising as it seems to use "lpr").

------------------
Maybe the problem is something completely different, but that's all I could find out. The only thing I know for sure is that I have no proper solution to print such documents which I need for studying :-(

But I hope that this bug can be solved. I will help as good as I can.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Nov 19 20:08:19 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Lpstat:
 device for Brother_DCP-120C: usb://Brother/DCP-120C
 device for PDF: cups-pdf:/
 device for PDF1: cups-pdf:/
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: cups 1.4.1-5ubuntu2.1
Papersize: a4
PpdFiles:
 PDF: Generic CUPS-PDF Printer
 Brother_DCP-120C: Brother DCP-110C CUPS v1.1
 PDF1: Generic CUPS-PDF Printer
ProcCmdLine: root=UUID=372d1bf0-e370-4a49-8e93-2e7ef4662923 ro quiet splash resume=UUID=628f8588-b1c4-47d2-af0d-2c83df012ff1
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=de_DE:de:en_GB:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-15.50-386
SourcePackage: cups
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-15-386 i686
XsessionErrors: (polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:2816): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
dmi.bios.date: 08/13/2003
dmi.bios.vendor: Phoenix Technologies, LTD
dmi.bios.version: 6.00 PG
dmi.board.name: MS-6701
dmi.board.vendor: MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO., LTD
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnPhoenixTechnologies,LTD:bvr6.00PG:bd08/13/2003:svnMEDIONPC:pn:pvr:rvnMICRO-STARINTERNATIONALCO.,LTD:rnMS-6701:rvr:cvn:ct3:cvr:
dmi.sys.vendor: MEDIONPC

[gf (gf-interlinks-deactivatedaccount)]

Hello DomLyons,
Thank you for submitting this bug and reporting a problem with cups. You made this bug report some time ago and Ubuntu and cups have been updated since then.

Could you confirm that this is no longer a problem and that we can close the ticket?
If it is still a problem, are you still interested in finding a solution to this bug?
If you are, could you let us know and, in the current version, could you run the following (only once):
apport-collect 485480
and upload the updated logs and and any other logs that are relevant for this particular issue.

Thank you again for helping make Ubuntu and cups better.
G

[FriedChicken (domlyons)]

Hi G,

thanks for your reply.

I have tried to reproduce case 3 (as I believe this is the one most interdependent from other applications/libs as Poppler or KDE-/Qt) using an EPSON BX620FWD. The problem described above did not occour.

My printer at that time was a Brother DCP-120C, but I don't have this device any more. So either the problem is solved or it is specific to Brother printers.

[gf (gf-interlinks-deactivatedaccount)]

Thanks for the update, DomLyons. So, do you mind if I close the report?
:)
G

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for cups (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]