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Old 12-29-2004, 05:03 AM   #1
kersten78
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Unsupported Personality: PCL, HP LaserJet 1012, and the story of it's impending doom


I finally got a printer--an HP LaserJet 1012. I installed the HPLIP drivers from sourceforge as documented on hp's site. Set up CUPS accordingly. Most of the time, everything prints fine... well, except for Firefox in some situations, but that's another story altogether.

Anyway, I keep running into the error: Unsupported Personality: PCL

So far, this seems to be completely random. I haven't been able to trigger the error no matter what I do. I can print 3 pages and then run into the error; and then I can print 20 pages before I catch the error. There seems to be no rhyme or reason. Needless to say, I've wasted at least a tree's worth of paper trying to recreate the situation.

The only "solution" I've been able to come up with is cycling the printer's power off and on (thanks to linuxprinting.org). This isn't really the kind of solution I'm looking for. From what I've read, quite a few of the HP printers use the PCL (printer control language) and for some reason, linux has a way of confusing it. I'm not sure if it has to do with the CUPS filters/conversions, or if it's something in the usb layer, etc, etc. I haven't been able to find any good info on this problem, or find any single incident that causes it.

Has anyone else run into similar problems with HP printers? and can anyone suggest a fix?
 
Old 12-29-2004, 07:06 AM   #2
ringwraith
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I did some googling. It looks like this is a well known problem. HP is aware of it. Apparently it sometimes occurs for MacOS as well. If linuxprinting.org hasn't found a solution yet, I doubt there is one. I think you can only hope that the problem gets fixed eventually. You can only check that you have the right driver and a ppd file installed.
 
Old 12-29-2004, 02:09 PM   #3
kersten78
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I did a bit more googling too, and the problem seems to happen no matter what OS or drivers you use. There's been reports of the same problem with linux, mac OS, windows server, xp, 2000, etc, etc...
The good thing is that with the cups ppd file and driver, I can control all the printer settings (paper tray, quality, double sided, etc, etc.)... not to say that they all work properly, but at least the various options are recognized. And I haven't run into any formats that don't print. So I guess I can live with flipping the power switch for now. If it was a high traffic printer, it would be a different story. But for my use, I guess it does the job.
 
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Old 03-24-2006, 10:28 PM   #4
Old_Fogie
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For the record I am getting this error too with my hp laserjet 1012.

I am using slackware 10.2 w/2.6.10 kernel.

I'm using the CUPS that is included with slackware.

My HP Laserjet 1012 is using the foomatic / hpijs driver too.

I'm glad you said to power off the printer; as that seems to fix it for me when I get that "unsupported pcl" error too.

I wonder how long it will go between prints, guess I will have to see.
 
Old 03-24-2006, 11:04 PM   #5
kersten78
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Wow, I forgot all about this thread!

I think I might have some good news for you. I can't confirm anything as I've only been using the driver for about 5 minutes, but according to linuxprinting.org the pxl1010.ppd fixes the problem by adding an 8-byte sequence that's not in standard PCL.

I was using Ubuntu with the printer a few months ago, and the problem magically disappeared. At the time I didn't bother checking the config to see what was different, but as soon as I switched back to Gentoo (and the foomatic hpijs), the errors returned. I'm guessing Ubuntu used the pxl1010.ppd.

Anyway, here's what I did:

First, I downloaded the pxl1010.ppd from http://linuxprinting.org/show_printe...-LaserJet_1012
and copied it to the /etc/cups/ppd/ directory. It's the third link in the "Drivers" section of the page, and there's a brief description of how the problem was fixed.

I then removed the printer using CUPS' handy web-based config and reconfigured it specifying the proper pxl1010 ppd file.

So far everything's working fine... if I run into any trouble I'll let you know. I'm thinking that this is the driver that Ubuntu used, in which case the problem should be solved.
 
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Old 03-25-2006, 12:23 AM   #6
Old_Fogie
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Oh fantastic your still around, LOL I noticed that this was an old thread.

I was using Mepis 3.4.3 before switching this computer over to slackware; and I never had the problem on the Mepis. Which as you know is a recent debian hybrid and more current than the slackware. Maybe slack has old drivers in it.

Please let me know how you make out with that and then I try it in a few days from now; I'm trying to figure out some other stuff on here .

Thanks for the info and reply. I look forward to seeing how you make out with that fix.
 
Old 05-04-2006, 09:42 AM   #7
kersten78
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Update: Since switching to the pxl1010.ppd file as I described above, I haven't encountered a single Unsupported PCL error.

Last edited by kersten78; 08-08-2006 at 08:45 AM.
 
Old 05-05-2006, 09:18 PM   #8
Old_Fogie
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Fantastic! thank you. I put the HPLIP software on slackware 10.2 and it too got rid of the error.

Last edited by Old_Fogie; 06-09-2006 at 03:21 PM.
 
Old 08-07-2006, 06:22 PM   #9
andrain
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I know this probably isnt the best place to ask but does anyone know if this file will work in Windows XP? Thanks in advance for the help.
 
Old 08-08-2006, 09:03 AM   #10
kersten78
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Quote:
Originally Posted by andrain
I know this probably isnt the best place to ask but does anyone know if this file will work in Windows XP? Thanks in advance for the help.
From what I've read, this ppd file is specific to CUPS and Linux/Unix. When I first ran into this problem, Google turned up quite a few results referring to the same problem on Windows XP. If I remember right, it only happens with non-Microsoft apps, and there really wasn't a working solution at the time. Your best bet is to check the HP site for updated Windows drivers--maybe they've solved the problem. As an alternative, you could set up the printer on a box running Linux. I have my HP 1012 shared through Samba on SuSE 10.1--my girlfriend's Windows XP box prints on it with no problems.

Last edited by kersten78; 08-08-2006 at 09:05 AM.
 
Old 12-19-2018, 04:28 AM   #11
r05s
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Unsupported Personality: PCL, HP LaserJet 1012 etc.

This is still a problem, at least with old printers and if you are using HPLIP.

I had a similar problem printing to an old (c.2003) HP LaserJet 1010 from Lubuntu 16.04.5 LTS running on a Dell Inspiron 15. HPLIP 3.18.12 finds the printer and installs it but when printing only blank pages come out.

To get it working I deleted the printer from HPLIP and installed it through the CUPS web interface localhost:631 and chose the HP LaserJet 1010 - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.11 under Make & Model options, not the HP LaserJet 1010, hpcups 3.18.12 (en) option/s.

This does work but occasionally one gets a long delay on a print job and a blank page with "Unsupported Personality: PCL" printed at the top. As described below, the only solution to this seems to be to turn the printer off and on again, and retry the print job.

(openprinting.org/printer/HP/HP-LaserJet_1010) "Unfortunately, the new LaserJet 1010/1012 series seems not to be absolutely compatible with older HP printers or it has a firmware bug. Sometimes it happens that the printer stops working and reports the error "Unsupported Personality: PCL". It only continues working when one kills the job and power-cycles the printer.")
 
Old 12-19-2018, 04:30 AM   #12
r05s
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Link to the original askubuntu answer: https://askubuntu.com/a/1103047/905611
 
Old 12-19-2018, 04:34 AM   #13
ponce
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Quote:
Originally Posted by r05s View Post
This is still a problem, at least with old printers and if you are using HPLIP.

I had a similar problem printing to an old (c.2003) HP LaserJet 1010 from Lubuntu 16.04.5 LTS running on a Dell Inspiron 15. HPLIP 3.18.12 finds the printer and installs it but when printing only blank pages come out.

To get it working I deleted the printer from HPLIP and installed it through the CUPS web interface localhost:631 and chose the HP LaserJet 1010 - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.11 under Make & Model options, not the HP LaserJet 1010, hpcups 3.18.12 (en) option/s.

This does work but occasionally one gets a long delay on a print job and a blank page with "Unsupported Personality: PCL" printed at the top. As described below, the only solution to this seems to be to turn the printer off and on again, and retry the print job.

(openprinting.org/printer/HP/HP-LaserJet_1010) "Unfortunately, the new LaserJet 1010/1012 series seems not to be absolutely compatible with older HP printers or it has a firmware bug. Sometimes it happens that the printer stops working and reports the error "Unsupported Personality: PCL". It only continues working when one kills the job and power-cycles the printer.")
hi r05s, welcome to LQ!

as this is your first post be aware that it has absolutely no sense reviving a fourteen years old topic in the Slackware section of the forum to assert a thing that has no relation whatsoever with this distribution, and also if it was related reviving a thread so old that it can drive a motorbike (at least in my country) is a bad thing "per se".
so, please, avoid doing this and open a new thread in the proper section instead.

Last edited by ponce; 12-19-2018 at 04:36 AM.
 
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Old 12-19-2018, 04:58 AM   #14
Lysander666
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I think, in all honesty, it's because some people just enjoy necroing topics.

r05s, as ponce says, there is no reason to revive a thread which is fourteen years old. It just confuses people who don't look at posting times, and well-meaning respondents will think that the OP still needs some assistance when he hasn't posted here since 2007.

If you want to raise issues like this in the future, just start a new topic.
 
Old 12-19-2018, 08:49 AM   #15
kersten78
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Talking

I sure do miss that printer. Once I got it working, the 1012 was bulletproof
 
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