printer wastes lot of ink when photo quality

[Jonathan Michalon]

When printing in photo quality on glossy paper, the printer drops far too much ink. So much that it may flow on the paper if I incline it. When the ink is dry, we can see some marks that show where it has accumulated.

I use default settings for the printer.
It happens with a live USB too, so doesn't come from an upgrade.

System: Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex
Printer: Epson Stylus Photo R285
Driver: CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.0-rc1

Note: this didn't happen with Hardy (gutenprint v5.0.2), may therefore be related to gutenprint.

[Dominik Smatana (dominik-smatana)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Unfortunately we can't fix it without more information.

Please include the information requested at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingPrintingProblems as separate attachments.

[Jonathan Michalon (johndescs)]

So here are the informations I should have given.

$ lsmod | grep usb
usblp 22784 0
usbhid 39648 0
hid 59072 1 usbhid
usbcore 176016 5 usblp,usbhid,uhci_hcd,ehci_hcd

From /var/log/messages
Mar 22 14:54:51 RunningPinguin kernel: [ 1808.504049] usb 1-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
Mar 22 14:54:51 RunningPinguin kernel: [ 1808.644345] usb 1-4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Mar 22 14:54:51 RunningPinguin kernel: [ 1808.796170] usblp0: USB Bidirectional printer dev 4 if 0 alt 0 proto 2 vid 0x04B8 pid 0x0007
Mar 22 14:54:51 RunningPinguin kernel: [ 1808.797462] usbcore: registered new interface driver usblp
Mar 22 14:57:59 RunningPinguin kernel: [ 1996.897160] usb 1-4: USB disconnect, address 4
Mar 22 14:57:59 RunningPinguin kernel: [ 1996.904176] usblp0: removed
Mar 22 14:58:15 RunningPinguin kernel: [ 2012.688058] usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5
Mar 22 14:58:15 RunningPinguin kernel: [ 2012.828398] usb 1-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Mar 22 14:58:15 RunningPinguin kernel: [ 2012.835984] usblp0: USB Bidirectional printer dev 5 if 0 alt 0 proto 2 vid 0x04B8 pid 0x0007

$ lpinfo -v
network socket
network beh
direct hal:///org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_4b8_7_5731335031479F6EE2_if0_printer_noserial
direct usb://EPSON/Stylus%20Photo%20R285
direct hpfax
direct hp
network http
network ipp
network lpd
direct scsi
network smb

Script printingbuginfo: there is no intrepid repo so I used the hardy one…
file attached

[Jonathan Michalon (johndescs)]

Here is the cups error log :

[Jonathan Michalon (johndescs)]

Here are the shots of the ink on my tests (right is a dry test, left the one I did for cups error_log)

[Dominik Smatana (dominik-smatana)]

Thanks for reporting this bug and any supporting documentation. Since this bug has enough information provided for a developer to begin work, I'm going to mark it as confirmed and let them handle it from here.

Thanks for taking the time to make Ubuntu better!

[Jonathan Michalon (johndescs)]

I must say that this is always true with Jaunty, up-to-date as of today.

[Jonathan Michalon (johndescs)]

The issue is always true with Karmic. I use the hardy driver to print photos (I've another system installed) but it's really annoying to reboot all the time since my default system is Karmic.
Really no idea of what is going wrong, and nobody with the same printer to test and confirm or infirm the issue ? As this is an old bug and is happening for three versions of Ubuntu, I'm very surprised !