CUPS print jobs print 1st page OK, but all others are overwritten
 

Not sure when CUPS started acting up. I have the latest 13.1 current software installed. The first page to print is always OK, but all succeeding pages are overwritten. The second page shows the first page on top of it, and the third shows the preceding pages on top of it - and so on.
Has anyone else seen this problem?
I guess the printer buffer is not getting flushed correctly. If my configurations were trashed in some way, I don't know where to look for a fix.

Yes, I have the same problem. The only solution I found was to print one page at a time. Hplip wasn't much better. At this point I'm running Xp in VirtualBox when I have to print, scan, Fax, or run Bluetooth. This means Xp is running on my desktop all day during business hours. :banghead:

Thanks. At least I'm not the only one. The "CUPS forum" wasn't any help.

Over this last rainy weekend I took the time to run through the various options for installing a printer. I tried using the HP utility and http://localhost:631 (in a browser).
Using the HP utility was not successful.
Using localhost:631 showed about 4 or 5 different drivers, e.g., hplip, gutenprint, and combinations of the two.
I went through each and then ran a test print and a multi-page document.
Success was achieved by using the straight hplip driver. Printing speed is reasonable and multi-page documents are
printing propery.
Just FYI.
:)

I've got the same problem with a Canon BJC-80. I've now reverted back to -

foomatic-filters-4.0.4-i486-1.txz
ghostscript-fonts-std-8.11-noarch-1.txz
gutenprint-5.2.4-i486-2.txz
cups-1.4.3-i486-3.txz
ghostscript-8.71-i486-2.txz

These were the packages that were used in 13.1. The BJC-80 prints all pages perfectly.

Will need to roll forward the packages to the versions used in 13.37 to see what package breaks printing. Though, due to lack of time, I won't be doing it in the next month or so.

I'm using 13.1, fully updated. cups-1.4.5-i486-2_slack13.1. I use an HP LaserJet 4200, connected to a parallel port.

I tried a few multipage documents and could not replicate the problem. My printer has a duplex tray but I disabled that option for my testing.

Unsure how to help. :( Some weak ideas:

There are files in /var/cache/cups, /var/run/cups, /var/spool/cups that can be deleted. Stop the service, delete the files, start the service.

Do you have any files named $HOME/.lpoptions or /etc/cups/lpoptions? Those files contain override and custom settings.

Are all files in /etc/cups chowned root:lp?

What is this?
I had the same problem with a HP Deskjet F2180, selecting the f2200 Driver ( the next one up ) seemed to fix the problem for the moment.

You did not mention what brand of printer you have; if it's a Hewlett-Packard, I've found the "best" way to set it up is with HPLIP.

First, open CUPS in your browser and delete the existing printer (and if there's more than one of the same printer, delete those too!). Close CUPS.

Then make sure the printer is turned on and execute hp-setup; you'll get a set up window. You use that to find and identify the printer -- generally it's automagic for a USB printer, not so automagic for an Ethernet printer (and I don't know about parallel or serial connections). I have both a USB and Ethernet printers and I need to enter the fixed-IP address of the Ethernet one (and then hp-setup finds it likity-split).

hp-setup creates the entries in CUPS for you.

In Slackware 13.37 (both 32- and 64-bit) you can execute hp-setup as "you" and you'll be asked for the root password; I seem to recall that I had to actually log in as root in Slackware 13.1 to do the set up and that may be the case.

If you go look at http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/index.html there's a how-to use hp-setup along with a download of the current version of HPLIP. It may be useful to download the source and build it with the Slackbuild from the source directory on your distribution disk (edit the version number and there you go).

Hope this helps some.

Yes its a HP, tried the hp-setup and it created the printer fine but again got the over printing but again I selected the 2200 driver instead of the the 2100 driver ( via cups ) and problem solved, so must be a problem with the driver, thanks anyway

I'm writing to confirm that I had the same problem on stock 13.37 with an Officejet 6500. I managed to fix it by upgrading hplip, foomatic, and ghostscript to the latest releases.

I have suffered from the same issue on my new epson printer (sx425). I believe the problem at least in my case was ghostscript. This was the only package I upgraded, and early indications are that the problem is solved. I have seen bug reports on ghostscript 9.00 to support this.
I used the source slackbuild (commenting out the diff) on version 9.02

Perhaps Slackware devs might like to consider this as an update?

tobyl

Same issue in 13.37 with HP DeskJet 843c
 

I recently upgraded from Slackware 13.0 64-bit to 13.37 64-bit (upgrading to 13.1 first).

Multi-page printing then broke on my HP DeskJet 843C printer. It was originally configured under Slack 13.0 with CUPS+GutenPrint and was working fine. Post upgrade, page 2 onwards of any document prints corrupted as described above.

I followed the earlier advice and deleted the printer in CUPS & re-created it by running hp-setup (as root) and it now uses the hpijs driver, and prints multi-page documents fine.

The strange thing is that I also just added an HP LaserJet 5N network printer from CUPS using CUPS+GutenPrint (hp-setup wouldn't detect it), and this prints multiple pages fine.

So, it looks like some printer/driver combinations cause multi-page documents to be printed corrupted (or perhaps it is ghostscript as per previous poster).

Anyway, just another data point to help track the problem down.

Thanks & Kind Regards,
Marc

I've found that hp-setup won't detect network printers all that well unless you

• Choose Show Advanced Options
• Choose Manual Discovery
• Enter the IP address of the printer or USB Bus ID (either will work)

You can also (usually) find a network printer if you

• Choose Show Advance Option
• Select Network Discovery Method SLP

It generally is a good idea, if you're having problems, to go get the latest HPLIP from the web site http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web...slackware.html, use the SlackBuild from your Slackware installation media (it's in the source directory in ap/hplip), change the version number, build the package and upgradepkg from there.

Hope this helps some.

I also have an HP and had the same problem, as well as getting weird colors. What fixed it for me was to change the driver from hplip to hpjips (or something like that). Works flawlessly now.

The original problem of overwriting the 2nd+ page is caused by ghostscript. Reverting to a previous version is a workaround.

Fixed in -current*

* I think

Thanks. Yep seems to be working.

As far as I can tell this is not printer specific. It's just CUPS and the low default 8 Mb memory for rasterization (see, for example http://lists4.opensuse.org/opensuse-.../msg00555.html). To solve it just edit /etc/cups/cupsd.conf and add a line at the end of the file with

RIPCache 64m

At least it worked in my Epson SX125

I solved upgrading ghostscript with the Pat's slackbuild a few days ago (hplips and cups are already up to date in slackware 13.37). When upgrading ghostscipt I didn't use the patches provided by Pat.
I had the same problem with an HP Officejet 4500. Not only I faced the overwrite problem, but color printings was in negative.

UPDATE: the new ghostscript-9.02 package is in the -current from yesterday.
And in the changelog, Pat asks: "Is this ready for 13.37/patches now?".
Then I removed my ghostcript and installed the one downloaded from slackware.com and it works fine for me. So I would say yes :p

I've just downloaded ap/ghostscript-9.02-i486-2.txz from current and my canon bjc-80 is now working properly.

Patches for 13.37 are up.

Thanks. All is good again in the state of Bobmark.

I'm having a similar problem after installing Slackware 13.37 (x86 version). The standard package using the hpijs driver in hplip-3.11.3a with cupsd hung at the end of a 1 page Postscript document. My printer is an HP3650, which uses the HP3320 driver. These are not PCL printers, so the device driver has to convert Ghostscript raster lines to HP's "proprietary" PPA format. The driver does not emit a "print buffer" PPA command after the last data, causing the hang. The dj3320 driver in -3a/prnt/hpijs is a mess of state machine and spaghetti code, and I couldn't figure out how to fix it, so I recompiled and reinstalled hplip to use the "hpcups" backend to ghostscript-9.00, and the problem went away. However, now I get the overprinting described earlier. Haven't had a chance to look at the PPA from the hpcups driver yet, but I'm sure a "buffer clear" is missing at the beginning/end of each page, except the first. For what it's worth, when looking at the postscript directly with a "gs" command, the output looks fine(on the screen), so it is unlikely that Ghostscript itself is screwing up the raster lines. The ijs backend to ghostscript simply forwards the lines to hplip/hpcups, so the high probability candidate is the driver, either the Lidl.cpp file or something in the dj3320...h files. Unlike hpijs, hpcups has a common driver for many different printers...

[WORKAROUND] for ghostscript-9.00 slackware overprinting
 

Contrary to my earlier post, the problem relates to the IJS driver in GS-9.00. Reverting to ghostscript-8.71 (from the Slackware 13.1 release) gets things working again. I sent a bugzilla post upstream to the Ghostscript bug list. Maybe overtaken by events - will try 9.02 based on latest posts...

I've commented on the Ghostscript bugzilla report*:
"We're unlikely to look into this unless you can supply a Ghostscript invocation to reproduce the problem - ""lpr foo.ps" with CUPS installed" doesn't help us to reproduce the issue in a debug environment."

Also, if it turns out that 9.02 does resolve the issue, we'd appreciate updating the bug to that effect.

Chris

* Bug 692321

Just a quick thanks to Rod for updating GS bugzilla with his results confirming 9.02 works as expected - I really appreciate it.

And I've now closed the bug.

Cheers,

Chris