HPLIP

HP Deskjet 3920 printing blank pages in every OS except Ubuntu Maverick

Bug #693509 reported by Kupfer on 2010-12-22

This bug affects 2 people

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	HPLIP	Confirmed	Undecided	Unassigned
	hplip (Ubuntu)	Fix Released	Undecided	Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: cups

My HP Deskjet 3920 is printing empty pages in every linux I tried except Ubuntu Maverick and it's derivative Linux Mint 10.

I can confirm that it is printing empty pages in following operating systems

Linux Mint Debian Edition (201009)
OpenSuse 11.3
OpenSuse 11.4 Milestone 3
PCLinuxOS 2010.7
Mepis 8.5
Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04.1 LTS

If I remember correctly, the problem started after or with the release of Lucid Lynx, but wasn't limited to it. I also had an older computer with Jaunty Jackalope, with which I could print without a problem before. After the release of Lucid I couldn't even print in Jaunty, only empty pages. I assumed this was because of an update I must have downloaded and which was also implemented in Lucid. The ONLY operating system at the time, with which I could print (even after updating it frequently) was Mandriva Linux 2010.

After the release of Ubuntu 10.10 I ditched Mandriva 2010 (I haven't tested 2010.1) because with Maverick I can print without any problem - no empty pages, everything is working as it should!
As I assumed that this meant printing was fixed in other operating systems too, I started distro-hopping. I came to realize that this was not the case. I started out with LMDE and Mepis, but only empty pages were printed. I assumed this was because they didn't have the most cutting edge packages and latest updates with bug fixes. So I installed PCLinuxOS with the same result: Printing empty pages.
After that, I installed OpenSuse 11.3 -> printing empty pages. Trying to solve the problem I downloaded a newer version of the hplip installer from hplipopensource.com and set up the printer again in YAST to no result: still was printing empty pages. (The Hplip interface also showed an error message saying that the printer is not connected - this may or may not be related to the problem.)
At that point I started to think, that most operating system didn't implement the bug fixes yet as Maverick did, so to test printing in the upcoming OpenSuse release, I downloaded OpenSuse 11.4 Milestone 4. Even in that one, my HP Deskjet 3920 gets recognized but it's printing empty pages!!

Months ago I also tested Pardus 2009.2 and remember it having the same problem -> printing empty pages.

So the ONLY operating systems, which can print with my Deskjet 3920, now are Ubuntu/Kubuntu Maverick 10.10 and the Ubuntu 10.10 derivative Linux Mint 10. I don't know what magic Ubuntu implemented in 10.10, but this should be done for other linux operating systems too! Because now my printer is basically worthless with every OS except Ubuntu Maverick and Mint 10.

Interesting: Printing works in Ubuntu 10.10, but NOT in Ubuntu 10.04! even tough I'm updating my Lucid frequently. By the way, my Kubuntu 10.10, which prints without any issues is detecting my HP 3920 as 3900.

Tags:

Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter) on 2010-12-22

affects:

cups (Ubuntu) → hplip (Ubuntu)

Revision history for this message

Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter) wrote on 2010-12-22:

Have you also tried a daily live CD (or Alpha 1 live CD) of Natty? I would like to know whether you can still print with Natty. Do not install Natty, as it is still under development.

Can you do the following:

Take your printer's PPD file

/etc/cups/ppd/<printer name>.ppd

of your Maverick box and copy it to the other machines. There assign this PPD file to your print queue, for example with the command:

lpadmin -p <your printer> -P <PPD file from Maverick> -o PageSize=A4

(use "-o PageSize=Letter" if you are in the US or in Canada). Make sure that "hpijs" is installed on your machines (test with "which hpijs") and install the appropriate package if needed. Can you print now?

In general try also different settings for the PrintoutMode and Quality options.

Here some important background info why I am asking this, both for you and for the HPLIP developers at HP:

I have patched the hpijs.drv and the hpcups.drv files (the PPD generators for non-PostScript PPDs in HPLIP) in Maverick and Natty, assuming that on LIDIL printers (the DeskJet 3920 is a LIDIL printer) both the black cartridge and the color cartridge are installed and also assuring that all modes are available in the PPD, the ones for two-cartridge setups and also the ones for only the color cartridge. Before, the PPD files had default settings for color-cartridge-only setups, as some cheaper printer packages were sold with only the color cartridge. Some PPDs even did not supply the two-cartridge modes. With my patch all PPDs default to two-cartridge modes and make one-cartridge modes optional. Here I assume that nowadays the printers are all sold with two cartridges and on older devices the users have already added a black cartridge.

So on Maverick you are most probably printing in a two-cartridge mode, and on all the other distros in a one-cartridge mode. The one-cartridge mode is perhaps not supported any more in a rather new printer like the DeskJet 3920.

Revision history for this message

Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter) wrote on 2010-12-22:

Patch to let LIDIL PPDs default to two-cartridge modes Edit (28.0 KiB, text/plain)

Attached is above-mentioned patch. I highly recommend to apply this patch to the upstream HPLIP package. It can be applied on both HPLIP 3.10.6 and 3.10.9.

tags:	added: patch-forwarded-upstream
Changed in hplip (Ubuntu):
status:	New → Fix Released
Changed in hplip:
status:	New → Confirmed

Revision history for this message

Kupfer (tamas-kadas) wrote on 2010-12-22:

Thank you SO much!
In my Lucid Lynx I went into System -> Administration -> Printing and in the Properties -> Printer Options window I changed printout mode to Normal Grayscale (Black Cartridge) - as I usually only use a black cartridge with the machine - and now I can print in Lucid! (It was set to Color Cartridge as default.) No empty pages anymore!

Interestingly, the default PrintOut Mode setting in my Kubuntu 10.10 is: Normal (Color cartrige) - and I don't have to change it to Grayscale to be able to print. (But of course, if I do, it is working fine also). Maybe this has to do with the problem you diagnosed.

I can further report, that in the Ubuntu Natty Daily Live Session I can also Print without changing a setting. Print Quality is set to Normal Color (I didn't see a PrintOut Mode setting, but then again, I checked this in haste.)

I also tested this solution on PCLinuxOS 2010.12. In the Live Session I let the system set up the printer. It printed empty pages by default again, but when I went into the PCLinuxOS Control Center -> Hardware -> Set up printers -> Printer options -> Print Quality -and set it to Normal Grayscale, I could print.

The same thing worked in a SimplyMepis Live Session too!

Unfortunately, I can't test it on OpenSuse right now, but should I run into problems setting it up at in the future, I'm sure the Opensuse Forums will help me out.

So the solution was pretty simple. I guess I got so used the simplicity of linux just plugging in the hardware and it working out of the box in the blink of an eye, that it didn't even occur to me that I should play around with the settings. I feel foolish.

Anyway, it would be cool if the printer could print by default in other distros too just like in Ubuntu Maverick and Natty and I hope your patch gets adopted!!

Thanks again!

Revision history for this message

Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter) wrote on 2010-12-22:

Note that the Plug'n'Print is supposed to work nicely with standard setups, which means both cartridges nowadays, your printer has only the black cartridge, an exceptional case. So you will probably always have to change the defaults to get the best out of your printer, but a two-cartridge mode should at least give a visible printout for you (but no correct color->grayscale conversion).

Strange is that the "Normal (Color Cartridge)" in Kubuntu 10.10 works for you (it is probably the overtaken default setting from the previous Ubuntu release). A newly set up queue in (K)Ubuntu 10.10 would have something like "Normal (Black and Color Cartridge)" as default.

Natty uses a different driver in HPLIP, therefore there is no PrintoutMode option any more. My patch fixes also the PPDs for that driver.

The easiest way to get my patch into all distributions is if it gets applied by the HPLIP developers at HP, therefore I have made an HPLIP upstream bug report out of this one.

Revision history for this message

Grigory Rechistov (atakua) wrote on 2011-11-06:

I can confirm this bug in Lucid - my HP Deskjet D2460 is giving me blank pages if the printout mode is set to use both cartridges (and the color one (22) is almost empty, while black (21) is a fresh one). I checked the same printer with Oneiric - I worked all right, while two laptops with Lucid give blanks.

Setting the printout mode to "Black only" fixed the problem, but it was very troublesome to find out - I spent two days wandering around without any clues to what's going on.