manual duplex fails when printing a document with an odd number of pages

[Tuomas Salo]

Binary package hint: cups

This bug is seen when I try to print a document that has an odd number of pages (3, 5, 7, ...). It happens on my HP Laserjet M1120 MFP.

What I expect (with a 5-page document):

1) Odd-numbered pages (1,3,5) are printed
2) The printer waits for me to re-feed the pages that were just printed. The LCD screen on the printer says "Load paper press [OK]"
3) I push the "OK" button on the printer
4) the even-numbered pages are printed on the other side of each paper

What happens:

1) This is what is printed, in this order:
- page 1
- page 3
- page 5
- an empty page
- page 4 (upside down)
2) cups and the printer think everything is ok (printer says "Ready")

Documents with an even number of pages print ok.

When printing a three-page document, I get: page 1, page3, an empty page.

I can reproduce this when printing at least from: evince, Openoffice, command-line (lpr), Adobe Acrobat Reader.

I tried with several PDF files and the .odt file. I attached four test files. The ones with 2 and 4 pages are printed ok, the others are not.

Also reproducible from an i386 installation.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: cups 1.4.3-1ubuntu1.2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-24.43-generic 2.6.32.15+drm33.5
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-24-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
CupsErrorLog:
 E [26/Sep/2010:19:54:59 +0300] [cups-driverd] Bad driver information file "/usr/share/cups/drv/sample.drv"!
 E [26/Sep/2010:19:55:19 +0300] [cups-driverd] Bad driver information file "/usr/share/cups/drv/sample.drv"!
 E [26/Sep/2010:20:13:20 +0300] Unable to remove temporary file "/var/spool/cups/tmp/.hplip" - Is a directory
Date: Sun Sep 26 20:14:25 2010
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100429)
Lpstat: device for HP-LaserJet-M1120-MFP: hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_M1120_MFP?serial=MF13X16
Lsusb:
 Bus 002 Device 003: ID 413c:2003 Dell Computer Corp. Keyboard
 Bus 002 Device 002: ID 046d:c00e Logitech, Inc. M-BJ58/M-BJ69 Optical Wheel Mouse
 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 001 Device 004: ID 03f0:5617 Hewlett-Packard LaserJet M1120 MFP
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
MachineType: Dell Inc OptiPlex 740
Papersize: letter
PpdFiles: HP-LaserJet-M1120-MFP: HP LaserJet M1120 MFP Foomatic/foo2xqx (recommended)
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-24-generic root=UUID=b8de955b-1313-4f98-a889-1bdd475f9a22 ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: cups
dmi.bios.date: 03/17/2007
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc
dmi.bios.version: 1.1.3
dmi.board.name: 0PY127
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc
dmi.board.version: A02
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc:bvr1.1.3:bd03/17/2007:svnDellInc:pnOptiPlex740:pvr:rvnDellInc:rn0PY127:rvrA02:cvnDellInc:ct3:cvr:
dmi.product.name: OptiPlex 740
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc

[Tuomas Salo (naapuri)]

Additional information: on this amd64 machine I had installed the extra packages hplip-gui, hpijs-ppds, hplip-cups. I can reproduce the bug on another machine (i386) that doesn't have these packages installed.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

The manual duplex function is implemented in the foo2xqx driver which you are using, not in CUPS. Therefore I move this bug to foo2zjs which is the package which contains this driver. Presence of the hplip-gui, hplip-cups, and hpijs-ppds packages has no influence on this bug, they are not used in your workflow.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

Can you also attach an error_log as described in the "CUPS error_log" section of https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingPrintingProblems?

[Tuomas Salo (naapuri)]

Till, here's the error_log attached. HTH.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

Thank you very much. It is all OK with the error_log. The bug seems to be inside the printer driver.

[Tuomas Salo (naapuri)]

What happens next?

If there's no one willing to look at this issue, I could to try taking a look myself. In that case it would help a lot if I could have some pointers on:

* where to look for the bug

* how to test and inspect changes (without actually printing, if possible)

Btw, the bug is still marked Incomplete. Is it?

[Rick Richardson (rick-richardson)]

Use Gnome Manual Duplex - https://sourceforge.net/projects/g-manual-duplex/

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for foo2zjs (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Tuomas Salo (naapuri)]

Still reproducible in 11.10. A suggested workaround (using gnome-manual-duplex) not applicable anymore with Unity.