Printer dialog stuck on "Getting printer information..."

[Joe Barnett]

In GTK+3/gnome-3 apps (eg evince), when I select my network-discovered printer, the "Status" field changes to "Getting printer information..." and the mouse cursor goes into spinning icon, and the Print button stays disabled, so I cannot print.

In Firefox, the status tells me the printer is low on toner, but allows me to print.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.10
Package: cups 1.7.5-3ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.16.0-18.25-generic 3.16.3
Uname: Linux 3.16.0-18-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia wl
ApportVersion: 2.14.7-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
CupsErrorLog:
 E [01/Oct/2014:13:52:31 -0700] systemd_checkin: Unable to get local address - Permission denied
 E [02/Oct/2014:08:11:27 -0700] systemd_checkin: Unable to get local address - Permission denied
 E [03/Oct/2014:08:02:08 -0700] systemd_checkin: Unable to get local address - Permission denied
 E [03/Oct/2014:08:11:49 -0700] systemd_checkin: Unable to get local address - Permission denied
 E [03/Oct/2014:08:22:30 -0700] systemd_checkin: Unable to get local address - Permission denied
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Tue Oct 7 09:29:43 2014
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-02-24 (224 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-GNOME 14.04 "Trusty Tahr" - Alpha amd64 (20140218)
Lpstat: Error: command ['lpstat', '-v'] failed with exit code 1: lpstat: No destinations added.
MachineType: Apple Inc. MacBookPro11,3
Papersize: letter
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-18-generic.efi.signed root=UUID=135fd833-3282-4f3b-8802-0a27ec2765b9 ro quiet splash init=/lib/systemd/systemd vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: cups
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to utopic on 2014-08-17 (50 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 10/18/2013
dmi.bios.vendor: Apple Inc.
dmi.bios.version: MBP112.88Z.0138.B02.1310181745
dmi.board.asset.tag: Base Board Asset Tag#
dmi.board.name: Mac-2BD1B31983FE1663
dmi.board.vendor: Apple Inc.
dmi.board.version: MacBookPro11,3
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Apple Inc.
dmi.chassis.version: Mac-2BD1B31983FE1663
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAppleInc.:bvrMBP112.88Z.0138.B02.1310181745:bd10/18/2013:svnAppleInc.:pnMacBookPro11,3:pvr1.0:rvnAppleInc.:rnMac-2BD1B31983FE1663:rvrMacBookPro11,3:cvnAppleInc.:ct10:cvrMac-2BD1B31983FE1663:
dmi.product.name: MacBookPro11,3
dmi.product.version: 1.0
dmi.sys.vendor: Apple Inc.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Leoaloha (lpheobus)]

Me too.

[Leoaloha (lpheobus)]

my tmp directory was full of this

5451a2eb7b4f0 5451a2ee8e0c8 5451a2f1bd534 5451a2f51014b
5451a2eb7b5a3 5451a2ee8e17c 5451a2f1bd5f0 5451a2f510205
5451a2eb7b658 5451a2ee8e22f 5451a2f1bd6a8 5451a2f5102bc
5451a2eb7b70e 5451a2ee8e2ed 5451a2f1bd762 5451a2f51037a

[Leoaloha (lpheobus)]

reproducable every time i print something
and its coming from cups I suppose

ls -al in the /tmp directory, each file is as thus

lrwxrwxrwx 1 leoaloha leoaloha 36 Oct 29 16:42 5451a588b6de0 -> /etc/cups/ppd/Officejet_Pro_8600.ppd
lrwxrwxrwx 1 leoaloha leoaloha 36 Oct 29 16:42 5451a588b6e91 -> /etc/cups/ppd/Officejet_Pro_8600.ppd
lrwxrwxrwx 1 leoaloha leoaloha 36 Oct 29 16:42 5451a588b6f42 -> /etc/cups/ppd/Officejet_Pro_8600.ppd
lrwxrwxrwx 1 leoaloha leoaloha 36 Oct 29 16:42 5451a588b6ff6 -> /etc/cups/ppd/Officejet_Pro_8600.ppd
lrwxrwxrwx 1 leoaloha leoaloha 36 Oct 29 16:42 5451a588b70a7 -> /etc/cups/ppd/Officejet_Pro_8600.ppd
lrwxrwxrwx 1 leoaloha leoaloha 36 Oct 29 16:42 5451a588b7164 -> /etc/cups/ppd/Officejet_Pro_8600.ppd

delete all the files I can print one more time

[Leoaloha (lpheobus)]

upgraded to Hplib 3.14.10 and get same error
/tmp gets filled up with files

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

The /tmp getting quickly filled up with links to PPD files is treated in bug 1156398.

A workaround for bug 1156398 is to deactivate the system-config-printer applet and/or the system-config-printer D-Bus service by removing the read bits from the appropriate files, for example:

sudo chmod -r /usr/share/system-config-printer/scp-dbus-service.py

Does this solve the problem for you?

[Joe Barnett (thejoe)]

the chmod -r did not fix the issue for me (original reporter). In addition, I don't see any ppd file links getting created in /tmp.

For now, my only workaround is to print to pdf file, then open the pdf using firefox's native pdf viewer and print from there....

[Leoaloha (lpheobus)]

sudo chmod -r /usr/share/system-config-printer/scp-dbus-service.py

did not work for me

SHould I open another bug ticket? so as not to confuse the origional poster's problem as he said his /tmp directory is NOT getting filled

[Evan Carroll (evancarroll)]

Did you kill the process after you `chmod -r`'d it? Or, did you restart? Don't forget to `killall scp-dbus-service.py`

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

Comment #7 is only valid if you get links created in /tmp. You have to both remove the executable bit from scp-dbus-service.py and kill the scp-dbus-service.py process in this case. If this is the case for you, does printing return to work normally after applying the workaround?

The original description tells that printing works from Firefox and does not work from applications with GTK3 Print dialog. This looks like that something is wrong with the print dialog, as CUPS is able to print but the GTK3 print dialog does not give access to the printer. So please try to print from LibreOffice and/or from KDE applications (Okular, Digikam, ...). Can you print from these applications?

[Joe Barnett (thejoe)]

I had (and have) no scp-dbus-service.py running per `ps -ef` output.

trying to print from LibreOffice or okular doesn't show the network-discovered printer at all, only print to pdf/file options are available (with gtk3 / firefox print dialogs, initially only print to pdf/file is shown, then the network-discovered printer appears a few seconds later)

[Evan Carroll (evancarroll)]

I think these are two separate bugs then. I think Joe is experiencing something totally different. Joe does your tmp directory grow after you do this? Do you see a bunch of symlinks in it?

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

All please also check the permissions of the PPD files in /etc/cups/ppd/. They need to be world-readable.

Do

sudo chmod 644 /etc/cups/ppd/*.ppd

to assure this.

Does the problem dealt with in this bug (dialog hanging) go away? Or does only the filling up of /tmp (if you had this) stop?

[Joe Barnett (thejoe)]

As stated above, no symlinks in temp. the only thing I do get when i open a print dialog is an empty /tmp/systemd-cups.service-RANDOMLETTERS/tmp directory. This behavior started after upgrading from trusty to utopic, before I switched to systemd.

/etc/cups/ppd is empty for me:
$ ls -ltra /etc/cups/ppd
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root lp 4096 Sep 16 11:00 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 root lp 4096 Oct 23 10:28 ..

[Karl Tomlinson (bugs+launchpad)]

Setting "CreateIPPPrinterQueues Yes" in /etc/cups/cups-browsed.conf and running cups-browsed makes the printer available through cups for successful printing from GTK+ 3.16.5.

[6alfalfa9 (6alfalfa9)]

Confirming #16.
Adding "CreateIPPPrinterQueues Yes" to /etc/cups/cups-browsed.conf fixed problem on Arch Linux (Gnome 3.22)

[Jamie Strandboge (jdstrand)]

The apparmor denials were fixed in 1.7.1-1.