HPLIP slow pdf printing

[Michael Pitchford]

Some pdf print extremely slowly with CUPS/HPLIP on HP Color Laserjet 2605dn and Laserjet 2420. Typical times for a 'bad' single page (70-90kb): 1 -3 hours.
HP 2605dn reports Status Busy code 1001.
Linux "top" utility reports an essentially idle system, and ethernet traffic at < 1kB/sec.

The current workaround is to send the offending pdf to a RAW queue straight to the printer, where it prints fast and fine.
Linux system is AMD64 Jaunty(9.04) 2.6.28-17. Ghostscript version is 8.64.dfsg.1-0ubuntu0 (jaunty), with libgs8 the same.

Most PDF document print fine, but those prepared with Adobe 8 (? others) appear to be badly slow. We are testing the association of Adobe 8 and Win 2007 Excel, the usual source of troublesome slow files.
PDF structure appears intact and optimization does not resolve the issue.

-The same slow PDFs print fine with HPLIP under Win XP3.

At this stage, it appears possibly a ghostscript or library issue? Maybe we missed something?

The metadata from the attached pdf:
<</CreationDate(D:20100115164009-05'00')/Author(ci35)/Creator(PScript5.dll Version 5.2)/Producer(Acrobat Distiller 8.0.0 \(Windows\))/ModDate(D:2010011516400xrefbj0')/Title(SPAA 2009 - 2010_ Jan11 2010 xlsx.xlsx)>>

HPLIP reports status as Busy Code 1001.

Output from hp-check:

HP Linux Imaging and Printing System (ver. 3.9.12)
Dependency/Version Check Utility ver. 14.3

Copyright (c) 2001-9 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP
This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, and you are welcome to distribute it
under certain conditions. See COPYING file for more details.

Note: hp-check can be run in three modes:
1. Compile-time check mode (-c or --compile): Use this mode before compiling the
HPLIP supplied tarball (.tar.gz or .run) to determine if the proper dependencies
are installed to successfully compile HPLIP.
2. Run-time check mode (-r or --run): Use this mode to determine if a distro
supplied package (.deb, .rpm, etc) or an already built HPLIP supplied tarball
has the proper dependencies installed to successfully run.
3. Both compile- and run-time check mode (-b or --both) (Default): This mode
will check both of the above cases (both compile- and run-time dependencies).

Saving output in log file: hp-check.log

Initializing. Please wait...

---------------
| SYSTEM INFO |
---------------

Basic system information:
Linux laopo-64 2.6.28-17-generic #58-Ubuntu SMP Tue Dec 1 21:27:25 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Distribution:
ubuntu 9.04

Checking Python version...
OK, version 2.6.2 installed

Checking PyQt 4.x version...
OK, version 4.4.4 installed.

Checking for CUPS...
Status: scheduler is running
Version: 1.3.9
error_log is set to level: warn

Checking for dbus/python-dbus...
dbus daemon is running.
python-dbus version: 0.83.0

------------------------
| RUNTIME DEPENDENCIES |
------------------------

Checking for dependency: CUPS - Common Unix Printing System...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: GhostScript - PostScript and PDF language interpreter and previewer...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: PIL - Python Imaging Library (required for commandline scanning with hp-scan)...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: PolicyKit - Administrative policy framework...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: PyQt 4 DBus - DBus Support for PyQt4...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: Python DBus - Python bindings for DBus...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: Python libnotify - Python bindings for the libnotify Desktop notifications...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: Python XML libraries...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: Python 2.3 or greater - Required for fax functionality...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: Reportlab - PDF library for Python...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: SANE - Scanning library...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: scanimage - Shell scanning program...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: xsane - Graphical scanner frontend for SANE...
OK, found.

----------------------
| HPLIP INSTALLATION |
----------------------

Currently installed HPLIP version...
HPLIP 3.9.12 currently installed in '/usr/share/hplip'.

Current contents of '/etc/hp/hplip.conf' file:
# hplip.conf. Generated from hplip.conf.in by configure.

[hplip]
version=3.9.12

[dirs]
home=/usr/share/hplip
run=/var/run
ppd=/usr/share/ppd/HP
ppdbase=/usr/share/ppd
doc=/usr/share/doc/hplip-3.9.12
icon=/usr/share/applications
cupsbackend=/usr/lib/cups/backend
cupsfilter=/usr/lib/cups/filter
drv=/usr/share/cups/drv/hp

# Following values are determined at configure time and cannot be changed.
[configure]
network-build=yes
pp-build=no
gui-build=yes
scanner-build=yes
fax-build=yes
dbus-build=yes
cups11-build=no
doc-build=yes
shadow-build=no
hpijs-install=no
foomatic-drv-install=no
foomatic-ppd-install=no
foomatic-rip-hplip-install=no
hpcups-install=yes
cups-drv-install=yes
cups-ppd-install=no
internal-tag=3.9.12.29
restricted-build=no
ui-toolkit=qt4
qt3=no
qt4=yes
policy-kit=yes
hpijs-only-build=no
lite-build=no
udev-acl-rules=no
hpcups-only-build=no
hpijs-only-build=no

Current contents of '/var/lib/hp/hplip.state' file:
# hplip.state - HPLIP runtime persistent variables.

[plugin]
installed=0
eula=0

Current contents of '~/.hplip/hplip.conf' file:
[last_used]
printer_name = HP_Color_LaserJet_2605dn
working_dir = .
device_uri = "hp:/net/HP_Color_LaserJet_2605dn?ip=192.168.1.4"

[commands]
scan = /usr/bin/xsane -V %SANE_URI%

[installation]
date_time = 02/02/2010 14:17:42
version = 3.9.12.29

[settings]
systray_messages = 0
systray_visible = 0

[fax]
email_address =
voice_phone =

[refresh]
rate = 30
enable = false
type = 1

[polling]
enable = false
device_list =
interval = 5

--------------------------
| DISCOVERED USB DEVICES |
--------------------------

No devices found.

---------------------------------
| INSTALLED CUPS PRINTER QUEUES |
---------------------------------

Color-LJ-Big-PDF
----------------
Type: Unknown
Device URI: socket://192.168.1.4:9100

HP_Color_LaserJet_2605dn
------------------------
Type: Printer
Device URI: hp:/net/HP_Color_LaserJet_2605dn?ip=192.168.1.4
PPD: /etc/cups/ppd/HP_Color_LaserJet_2605dn.ppd
PPD Description: HP Color LaserJet 2605 Postscript (recommended)
Printer status: printer HP_Color_LaserJet_2605dn now printing HP_Color_LaserJet_2605dn-0. enabled since Tue 02 Feb 2010 12:19:41 PM EST
Communication status: Good

----------------------
| SANE CONFIGURATION |
----------------------

'hpaio' in '/etc/sane.d/dll.conf'...
OK, found. SANE backend 'hpaio' is properly set up.

Checking output of 'scanimage -L'...

No scanners were identified. If you were expecting something different,
check that the scanner is plugged in, turned on and detected by the
sane-find-scanner tool (if appropriate). Please read the documentation
which came with this software (README, FAQ, manpages).

---------------------
| PYTHON EXTENSIONS |
---------------------

Checking 'cupsext' CUPS extension...
OK, found.

Checking 'pcardext' Photocard extension...
OK, found.

Checking 'hpmudext' I/O extension...
OK, found.

Checking 'scanext' SANE scanning extension...
OK, found.

-----------------
| USB I/O SETUP |
-----------------

Checking for permissions of USB attached printers...

HP Device 0x3005 at 001:003:
    Device URI: hp:/usb/hp_scanjet?serial=CN3CRB335994
error: Unsupported model: hp_scanjet

---------------
| USER GROUPS |
---------------

mp adm dialout cdrom plugdev lpadmin admin sambashare

-----------
| SUMMARY |
-----------

No errors or warnings.

Done.

-(The unsupported usb scanner hpScanjet 4670 does not appear to affect the issue. Runs fine with Win XP3.)