Printing with firefox does not work

Binary package hint: firefox

I can't print the text of some web sites with firefox. I have attached a sample HTML-File. When I print this file, only the image on the top left corner gets printed. The text doesn't appear on the printout at all.
This phenomenon can also be seen on the print preview page.

Print preview looks OK here.
Which version of Ubuntu and firefox are you using?

I'm using firefox 2.0 with ubuntu edgy.

I just tested it with firefox 1.5 under dapper and everything is ok. Strange.

Unconfirmed.
Print preview from firefox 2.0.0.1 on Edgy looks OK on my computer.

Can you please do a couple of things.
1. give the output of apt-cache policy firefox
2. give us a screenshot of print preview
3. attach a picture of the page after you print it
4. check the amount of black ink you have left.
5. check your printer settings

apt-cache policy firefox:

firefox:
  Installiert:2.0.0.1+0dfsg-0ubuntu0.6.10
  Mögliche Pakete:2.0.0.1+0dfsg-0ubuntu0.6.10
  Versions-Tabelle:
 *** 2.0.0.1+0dfsg-0ubuntu0.6.10 0
        500 http://ftp.inf.tu-dresden.de edgy-security/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2.0+0dfsg-0ubuntu3 0
        500 http://ftp.inf.tu-dresden.de edgy/main Packages
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com edgy/main Packages

The toner of my laser printer is OK. I can print other things without any problems.

I tried to print the attached HTML-file and NOW it works. But two days ago I had this printing problem with another website. I have no idea, how to reproduce this error. Sorry.

One thing I can remember: If this printing error occurs then I can't mark the webpage. (neither with Ctrl-A nor with the mouse). I know this, because I wanted to copy the webpage to the clipboard and then paste it to OO.Writer to print it. Because the marking didn't work, I couldn't do this.

I can confirm this problem:

firefox:
  Installiert:2.0.0.2+0dfsg-0ubuntu0.6.10
  Mögliche Pakete:2.0.0.2+0dfsg-0ubuntu0.6.10
  Versions-Tabelle:
 *** 2.0.0.2+0dfsg-0ubuntu0.6.10 0
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com edgy-security/main Packages
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com edgy-security/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2.0+0dfsg-0ubuntu3 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com edgy/main Packages

installed add-ons:
adblock filterset.g updater 0.3.0.5
adblock plus 0.7.2.4
link alert 0.7.1
videoDownloader 1.1.1

(problem also occurs with all add-ons deactivated!)

theme:
firefox (default) 2.0

A screenshot of the faulty printpreview is attached. I will also annex the actual faulty print-out (as pdf) from Firefox Ubuntu and a correct print-out of firefox 2.0 under WinXP in seperate comments.

"Amount of ink" can be excluded as the problem occurs with all tested network printers as well as in the ink-less preview and pdf-printqueue.

I don't know what to verify with the printer-settings, but generally printing works fine with other programs.

BTW, I cannot confirm the behaviour of the last paragraphe of the last posting, i.e. the "select all" issue. Even though that I can "select all", the print-out is patchy.

Here the pdf-printout from firefox under ubuntu

and here the correct printout from firefox under WinXP.

The problem is not specific to this webpage, it happens - if I remember right - with just about any webpage that I wanted to print out so far.

Therefore and considering the correct print out from firefox running under WinXP, I believe that it is not a web-site related issue.

It seems to me more something like a print-CSS missconfiguration (white text on white background or something like that) at some place, but then again it is just guessing in the blue and I have no clue on how to verify that.

I was waiting if the upgrade to feisty would do - by any chance - the trick, though to no avail. Print out is still totally unusable.

In search for alternate solutions, I installed the epiphany-browser and had to find out that I observe the very same problem. (cf. attached print-preview!)
I cannot speak for the original submitter of the bug, but for me it is obviously no longer a firefox bug but rather something related to the general printing system.

(The attached file "Screenshot of faulty Firefox Printpreview" of my first posting of 2007-03-02 was erroneous. It is a screenshot of the "print-version" of the sample web-page, though *not* the output of the print-preview menu-option of firefox itself! The firefox print-preview is as patchy as the print-out sample of my second post.)

Just for sake of completeness:
firefox:
  Installiert:2.0.0.3+1-0ubuntu2
  Mögliche Pakete:2.0.0.3+1-0ubuntu2
  Versions-Tabelle:
 *** 2.0.0.3+1-0ubuntu2 0
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

epiphany-browser:
  Installiert:2.18.1-0ubuntu1
  Mögliche Pakete:2.18.1-0ubuntu1
  Versions-Tabelle:
 *** 2.18.1-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Printing with konqueror works fine. I therefore have to correct the remark of my previous post. Having found out that epiphany uses the gecko rendering engine, I assume now that it is related to that and not - as assumed before - related to the printing system in general.

Status of this bug has been "Needs Info" for quite a while. I would be happy to provide further info if anyone would point me into the right direction.

Holger, since you volunteered to be the "official" tester :), can you please help on upstream triage a bit?

For that, please visit bugzilla and try to find this bug on http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/. There are probably multiple bugs that might fit, please read them carefully and let me know if you can find an exact match of your bug.

Thanks,

 - Alexander

Hi Alexander,

I screened the mozilla bug reports and found the following

Similar or identical bugs

239267 printing (preview, to file, to printer) does not work properly
       Seems to be "my bug".
       Problem with www.w3.org as described by original poster
       Problem with www.emse.fr/~xserpagg/ not observed, though page
       (i.e. html-code) might have evolved since 2004-03-31

315049 print preview is displayed incorrectly
       Bug description relates to firefox on XP, but observed "anomaly"
       very similar to my observations.
       However, I could not observe the described dependence on printer
       models.

Most probable different bug, but hard to confirm following the
description:
248075 The print preview and print output are partially blanked out
307631 Text lost during printing, while in print preview it's ok

Similar title, but not "my" problem -> discarded:
193211 Incomplete Printing
333425 print preview rendering AND ui bug
267547 Print Preview shows first page almost empty, printout is fine
109251 Page malformed and images missing when printed to printer or PS
file

So in summary, I suppose the correct upstream bug is 239267. It is hard
to tell from the provided info with 100% confidence that this is the
exact match, but probability is very high.

Hope that helps.

Holger

Am Montag, den 21.05.2007, 11:11 +0000 schrieb Alexander Sack:
> Holger, since you volunteered to be the "official" tester :), can you
> please help on upstream triage a bit?
>
> For that, please visit bugzilla and try to find this bug on
> http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/. There are probably multiple bugs that
> might fit, please read them carefully and let me know if you can find an
> exact match of your bug.
>
> Thanks,
>
> - Alexander
>
> ** Description changed:
>
> +
> + Tester: holger-burkhardt
> +
> Binary package hint: firefox
>
> I can't print the text of some web sites with firefox. I have attached a sample HTML-File. When I print this file, only the image on the top left corner gets printed. The text doesn't appear on the printout at all.
> This phenomenon can also be seen on the print preview page.
>
> ** Tags added: mt-upstream
>
> ** Tags removed: mt-needtester
>
> ** Changed in: firefox (Ubuntu)
> Status: Needs Info => Confirmed

thanks for the upstream triage, holger. Hope the bug gets some attention at some point.

Upgrade to gutsy seems to have resolved the problem for me.

firefox:
  Installiert:2.0.0.6+2nobinonly-0ubuntu1
  Mögliche Pakete:2.0.0.6+2nobinonly-0ubuntu1
  Versions-Tabelle:
 *** 2.0.0.6+2nobinonly-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

With
Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.11, Copyright (c) 1998 - 2007 mozilla.org
and
Mozilla Firefox-3.0 3.0b1, Copyright (c) 1998 - 2007 mozilla.org
on Gutsy, it is still broken. I can't print my Tomboy notes that were exported to HTML because only the first page is there. It seems to have trouble with breaking divs, because I got stuff on the 2nd page one time, and that time it had truncated about a page-worth of stuff from the end of one div and started the 2nd page at the start of the next div.

I am attaching a screenshot from Firefox 3.0.0.10 in hardy, of the initial test page. It looks correct to me.

Does anybody else confirm?

The print preview looks correct indeed, however, this is not the issue.

When actually printing the document to a real printer, nothing happens (not even a blank sheet of paper). However, there is a job (processed) in the CUPS log, so Firefox sent something to the printer. However, this something does not cause the printer to actually produce a printed document.

When actually printing (not preview) to a PostScript file, I get a mostly empty .ps file with a few comments but no real content. It seems that Firefox instructs Cairo to do the printing, but leaves out the final "flush" command or something.

This is Ubuntu hardy, with the latest security and no third-party packages, printing to a remote CUPS host and a PostScript capable printer there.

> apt-cache policy firefox
firefox:
  Installiert:3.0.10+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1
  Mögliche Pakete:3.0.10+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1
  Versions-Tabelle:
 *** 3.0.10+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1 0
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com hardy-updates/main Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.0~b5+nobinonly-0ubuntu3 0
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com hardy/main Packages

I should add that this bug is specific to certain websites. Printing in general does work.

Hi,

upstream bug #239267 most likely is a different issue, since print preview doesn't work there either. Also, it's ages old and about a different version of the Mozilla rendering stack. Nowadays, Mozilla uses Cairo to do its printing.

Greetings, Sebastian

The pages print in Firefox 2 (without the Cairo rendering backend), but don't print properly in Firefox 3 (with the Cairo rendering backend). So this is a regression for Firefox 3.

No more fixes for Firefox 2.

@Sebastian Kapfer

I think that you misunderstood this bug. This bug was for the discrepancies between Print Preview and actual printing. You are referring to a printing problem where nothing comes out.

Please read my message before closing the bug.

I said it _worked_ in Firefox 2 and it is _broken_ in Firefox 3.

Probably I wasn't clear enough about this: The HTML file posted by the original reporter of this bug _does_not_print_ in the current release of the Firefox-3 package in Ubuntu hardy despite being rendered correctly in the print preview.

This is a regression since it works in the Firefox-2 package shipped with hardy and is also of great visibility to users, as demonstrated by the large number of near-duplicates (see Launchpad bugs 228215, 301223, 309904, 357035, ...).

So please reopen #77786, even if the symptons have changed a little, the bug is still in there.

Maybe you're right and we should move this to a different bug and start from scratch. However, this is an extremely unnerving one with high visibility. It make Ubuntu look flaky to users, too, which can't be in our interests.

Sebastian, I think your bug is more a case of bug 228215. If you'd like to follow me over there, we can try to process your issue.

I fear it's actually a horrible mess of multiple bugs. Let's concentrate on the 'hardy Firefox 3 is unable to render some webpages to an ordinary PostScript file even though the print preview works' bug first, I think the interaction with CUPS is not the problem here, although it may introduce additional quirks. I'll check if we're having issues with gedit, too.

This is long gone.