Comment 1 for bug 525901

i was not able to reproduce this by download hplip-3.9.8.tar.gz from www.hplipopensource.com site and by following steps at
http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/install/manual/distros/ubuntu.html

when you got this error, at that time is your PC have installed hplip-gui/hplip-data package from your package manager?
Can you please let us know, which packages you have installed from your package manager for 3.9.8?

Thank you for reporting with HPLIP,
Naga Samrat Chowdary.