hplip 3.11.10 image printing is too dark on B110a - Opensuse 11.4 64bit

[Mark Fairbairn]

Using Opensuse 11.4 64bit with a HP B110a printer
HPLIP 3.11.5-1.5.1

When printing images onto photo paper (or even plain paper) they come out very dark.
I have tried making changes in hp-toolbox but changing the settings here seems to have no effect.

If I print from within windows7 on the same printer images look as they should.

Help please???

[Mark Fairbairn (farcus-r)]

this is a scan of the image that was printed which has come out too dark

[Mark Fairbairn (farcus-r)]

thanks for any help.
Image was printed using Gwenview 2.6.0

Images also print too dark when printed from other applications such as showfoto or even libreoffice.

[Sanjay Kumar (sanjay-kumar14)]

Hello Mark,

I Really appreciate your effort in providing the logs. That really helped me in finding the root cause. The root cause of this issue is the ghostscript version 9.0 which is installed in your system. There are lot of issues present in ghostscript 9.0. Please upgrade ghostscript to latest version or downgrade it to version 8.71 to solve the issue.

Please make sure following command does not show version 9.0

 /usr/bin/gs -v

Thanks for contacting HPLIP.

Thanks,
Sanjay

[Mark Fairbairn (farcus-r)]

Thanks
Unfortunately, the latest rpm of Ghostscript I could find for opensuse was 9.00-6 and I am not confident in success if I build 9.02 so have reverted to 8.71. This has fixed my problem.
Thank you again.

[Sanjay Kumar (sanjay-kumar14)]

Changing status to "invalid" since No code change was done in HPLIP.

[Mark Fairbairn (farcus-r)]

added X in red pen to highlight the printing boundary error

[Sanjay Kumar (sanjay-kumar14)]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the logs. the aspect ratio of the image to be printed does not match with the paper size used for printing. in order to get the proper output you should change the size of the image (crop or resize) to 127X89mm. Even if you do a fit to page alone, the printing will not be proper because of wrong aspect ratio.

Thanks,
Sanjay

[Sanjay Kumar (sanjay-kumar14)]

Hi Mark,

Printing is failing because of crash in ghostscript.

+++++++++++++++++++++
//See line in error_log
Nov 8 13:18:45 thinkpad kernel: [ 9154.851377] gs[21445]: segfault at ffffffffffffffff ip 00007f55a5d9b1d0 sp 00007fff0d1a4720 error 6 in libgs.so.8.70[7f55a5956000+51b000]
+++++++++++++++++++++++

I will investigate more on this. In the mean time please try with latest ghostscript version (I think version 9.04) and also please report the issue to ghostscript people.

Also please attach the document used for printing and /tmp/out.ps file generated by running following command in root mode.

>>>cupsfilter -m application/postscript -p /etc/cups/ppd/Photosmart_B110.ppd -o "media=L.FB PageRegion=L.FB MediaType=Glossy OutputMode=Photo" <full path of farcus.pdf> > /tmp/out.ps

NOTE: <full path of farcus.pdf> can be e.g /home/xyz/farcus.pdf

Thanks,
Sanjay

[Mark Fairbairn (farcus-r)]

thanks Sanjay - I think I might be doing something wrong with the command.
I am getting the following error

>>>> cupsfilter -m application/postscript -p /etc/cups/ppd/Photosmart_B110.ppd -o "media=L.FB PageRegion=L.FB MediaType=Glossy OutputMode=Photo" /home/farcus/Downloads/farcus.pdf > /tmp/out.ps
cupsfilter: Unable to determine MIME type of "/home/farcus/Downloads/farcus.pdf"!

it does generate an out.ps in the tmp folder but it is and empty file.

am I doing something wrong with the command?
What is farcus.pdf?
I have no such file. Do you mean the original file for printing (e.g. xyz.jpg) ?

[Mark Fairbairn (farcus-r)]

Hi again Sanjay
I have been dong a little more testing today.
I tried the latest Ghostscript (9.02) but was unable to get this to work in opensuse. It is apparently because the ghostscript that opensuse is modified quite a bit from the original.

I have however discovered that the print failure only occurs if I select the paper size L Borderless (89x127)

If I select L 89x127 then print occurs without problem.
However, it does leave me without an option for a full bleed print.

[Sanjay Kumar (sanjay-kumar14)]

Hi Mark,

Yes I mean original file name with full path.

Can you do one more thing. Open /etc/cups/ppd/Photosmart_B110.ppd in root mode and modify following 3 diffrent lines.
(Basically reduce the number of decimal places, may be that is resulting a ghostscript crash)

1) *PageSize L.FB/L Borderless 89x127mm: "<</cupsInteger0 121/PageSize[264.744 374.112]/ImagingBBox null>>setpagedevice"

2) *ImageableArea L.FB/L Borderless 89x127mm: "0 0 264.743988037109 374.111999511719"

3) *PageRegion L.FB/L Borderless 89x127mm: "<</cupsInteger0 121/cupsReal0 .079/cupsReal1 .098/PageSize[264.744 374.112]/ImagingBBox null>>setpagedevice"

   to

1) *PageSize L.FB/L Borderless 89x127mm: "<</cupsInteger0 121/PageSize[264.7 374.1]/ImagingBBox null>>setpagedevice"

2) *ImageableArea L.FB/L Borderless 89x127mm: "0 0 264.74 374.11"

3) *PageRegion L.FB/L Borderless 89x127mm: "<</cupsInteger0 121/cupsReal0 .079/cupsReal1 .098/PageSize[264.74 374.11]/ImagingBBox null>>setpagedevice"

and then save it.

[Mark Fairbairn (farcus-r)]

thanks for your time Sanjay.
Unfortunately, I haven't had much luck today.

Making the changes suggested above to /etc/cups/ppd/Photosmart_B110.ppd has made no difference.
I still receive the immediate message from HPLIP status monitor that printing has completed 501 and nothing prints.

Also when trying to run your command I get the following

>>>>cupsfilter -m application/postscript -p /etc/cups/ppd/Photosmart_B110.ppd -o "media=L.FB PageRegion=L.FB MediaType=Glossy OutputMode=Photo" /home/farcus/Downloads/winter.jpg > /tmp/out.ps
cupsfilter: No filter to convert from image/jpeg to application/postscript!

surely I am missing something here?

[Sanjay Kumar (sanjay-kumar14)]

Hello Mark,

Sorry for the delay. Can you do the following things.

Step 1:

Change following line inside (//////// Stabler section {....}) present in /usr/share/cups/hp/drv/hpcups.drv and then save.

  CustomMedia "L.FB/L Borderless 89x127mm" 264.744 374.112 0 0 0 0 "<</cupsInteger0 121/PageSize[264.744 374.112]/ImagingBBox null>>setpagedevice"
         "<</cupsInteger0 121/cupsReal0 .079/cupsReal1 .098/PageSize[264.744 374.112]/ImagingBBox null>>setpagedevice"

                            to

 CustomMedia "L.FB/L Borderless 89x127mm" 264 374 0 0 0 0 "<</cupsInteger0 121/PageSize[264 374]/ImagingBBox null>>setpagedevice"
         "<</cupsInteger0 121/cupsReal0 .079/cupsReal1 .098/PageSize[264 374]/ImagingBBox null>>setpagedevice" "<</cupsInteger0 121/cupsReal0 .079/cupsReal1 .098/PageSize[264 374]/ImagingBBox null>>setpagedevice"

(basically change (264.744 to 264) and (374.112 to 374) )

Step 2:
   Remove all print queues by following commands.
    => system-config-printer

Step 3:
       Restart cups service

Step 4:
    Re add the print queue by following command.
    => hp-setup

Now try to print with Borderless L.

Step 5: Pleae send me the console output of following command.
     cupsfilter -m application/vnd.cups-raster -p /etc/cups/ppd/Photosmart_B110.ppd -o "media=L.FB PageRegion=L.FB MediaType=Glossy OutputMode=Photo" /home/farcus/Downloads/winter.jpg > /tmp/out.ras

Thanks,
Sanjay