Printing problems after upgrade to Intrepid

[Dylan Thacker-Smith]

I started getting problems with printing after upgrading from Ubuntu Hardy (8.04) to Intrepid (8.10).

My printer is an HP PSC 2110 all-in-one printer with a USB connection.
I am using HPLIP 2.8.10 for my printer driver.
The version of the cups package I have installed is 1.3.9-2

Printing seems to work in some cases, and doesn't work in other cases.

For instance:
$ lpr 5004Midterm2008Solns.pdf

but then the following doesn't work:
$ pdf2ps 5004Midterm2008Solns.pdf
$ lpr 5004Midterm2008Solns.ps

I get a "Print Error" dialog when it fails to print with a message "There was a problem processing document 'SYSC-5004 Fall Term 2008: Midterm Solutions' (job 00)" where SYSC-5004 Fall Term 2008: Midterm Solutions and 51 are variable. The printer doesn't respond (i.e. no message change on the display or any attempt to print the page). I used the diagnose option on the print error dialog, and tried to print a test page, then saved the diagnostic output.

I tested with some different programs and I found the following.

Printing a PDF doesn't work in Adobe Reader, Evince (Document Viewer). Test pages from system-config-printer or HP Device Manager don't get printed. I also couldn't print documents from Open Office.

The printing does print from Gedit, GIMP, or from HP Device Manager (using Clean Cartridges).

The best workaround seems to be to save to a PDF file, then use lpr from the command line to print.

Let me know if there is any other information I can provide. I am not afraid of using the command line, compiler source code, or modifying/patching source code.

[James Burkle (james-burkle)]

I can confirm this in intrepid. printer is a network printer Brother HL2050DN that worked in Hardy. I cant print anything on it. Log file attached.

[bmar (bmarty79-gmail)]

I also have much printing issues with Intrepid when everything was correct with Hardy.
From some applications I can't print at all...
My printer is a HP F380. Troubleshoot.txt attached.

[bhouchmandzadeh (bahram)]

I have the same problem with my network printer (Xerox phaser 8400). I confirm that this is related to ps files.
lp name.pdf works fine
lp name.ps get a stopped message.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

I have looked into your error log and I have found the problem: "bc" is used by the /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstopdf filter but it is not installed on your system. Usually it should be installed as the CUPS package depends on it.

Please install it with "sudo apt-get install bc".

If you still have printing problems see bug 289759 and bug 282186 and try my improved pstopdf filter there (it also needs bc, but it has some bugs fixed.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

bhouchmandzadeh, do you still have problems? Can I close this bug?

[Dylan Thacker-Smith (dylan-smith)]

The bc package was installed, but the /usr/bin/bc file was missing.

The following command fixes the problem:
$ sudo apt-get install --reinstall bc

Thanks!

Hopefully this can be fixed during the dist-upgrade so more people don't experience this bug.

[James Burkle (james-burkle)]

bc is installed and in /usr/bin on my computer.... Im not sure my issue is the same as the other guys.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

James, your bug is not the same as the one reported here. Your error_log does not show any problem. Please report a separate bug.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

This bug is only about the missing /usr/bin/bc, which was not any problem of the Ubuntu distribution. Therefore I am closing this bug report here.

Dylan, a check whether all the files provided by all the packages are still there and not corrupted when doing the daily updates is probably not done because it was a too high load for the system to do so.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

Anyone else still having problems please look at bug 289759 and bug 282186 and the fix proposed there. If this fix does not help, please report new bugs.