Bug 770213

Summary: Intermittent print failures
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: info <info>
Component: hplipAssignee: Tim Waugh <twaugh>
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: unspecified Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 15CC: jpopelka, twaugh
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Hardware: Unspecified   
OS: Unspecified   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Last Closed: 2012-08-07 19:09:08 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Flags
Excerpt from the cups error_log on the print server for a failed job none

Description info@kobaltwit.be 2011-12-24 11:03:51 UTC
Description of problem:
We are using a HP Color Laserjet cm2320fxi. Intermittently, print jobs to this printer fail, for no clear reason.
The printer is used from the network in this configuration:
- The printer is accessible over the local network. It is not attached directly to any PC.
- A linux printserver is set up (currently running Fedora 15) that drives the printer.
- All other PC's (a mixture of F15 and F16 installs) send their print jobs to the linux printserver which is then responsible for handling the actual printing.

The failures can happen from any PC. I failed to find a pattern so far. The problem has been going on for some months now. Sometimes the printer works fine for days, sometimes it simply fails several times in a row.

In most cases, the print failure results in the printer (not the server, the printer itself) completely rebooting and the cups print queue is paused on the print server.

I first thought it was a hardware problem, so I have ordered a replacement unit. After a couple of days this replacement unit showed the exact same behaviour, so I'm back to debugging on the software level.

I will attach the log of one such failed job.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
(On the printserver)
cups-1.4.8-5.fc15.i686, 
hplip-3.11.10-5.fc15.i686

(On the f16 clients)
cups-1.5.0-22.fc16.i686
hplip-3.11.10-7.fc16.i686

How reproducible:
Not with every print job, but several times a week. 

Steps to Reproduce:
I wish I knew. Some print jobs trigger the failure, others don't.
  
Actual results:
The print job fails.
Usually the printer goes through a complete reset cycle and the cups queue is paused. However after resuming the print queue, the failed job usually prints fine anyway.

Expected results:
Error-free printing.


Any help on this problem is more than welcome. I'm almost tearing my hair out because I can't find a clear cause.

Please let me know what additional information can be helpful in debugging this.

Comment 1 info@kobaltwit.be 2011-12-24 11:05:00 UTC
Created attachment 549430 [details]
Excerpt from the cups error_log on the print server for a failed job

Comment 2 Jiri Popelka 2012-01-02 16:19:45 UTC
Thanks for the error_log.

From the following line
  prnt/backend/hp.c 625: ERROR: 5012 device communication error!
it seems like hp backend problem (5012 is HPMUD_R_IO_ERROR).

I'm not sure what other info would help us debugging the problem
but we could find the following useful:
- Output from printing troubleshooter
  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Printing/Debugging#Printing_troubleshooter
- error_log from successful print job (for comparing)
- error_log for a failed job with log level set to debug2
  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Printing/Debugging#Getting_debug_information_by_other_means
- Eventually I could build a hplip package for you with debugging messages enabled for that backend. It would require uncommenting some defines in source code.

The work-around for the problem could (not sure with this as I never tried using other backend with HP printer) be using other backend than hp, e.g. JetDirect:
socket://ip-address-or-hostname:9100

Comment 3 Jiri Popelka 2012-01-02 17:08:50 UTC
(In reply to comment #2)
> - Eventually I could build a hplip package for you with debugging messages
> enabled for that backend. It would require uncommenting some defines in source
> code.

You can find it here
http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=3614301

Assuming that the problem could be reproduced from other PC (configuring printing directly to the printer, not via server)
you don't need to test this on the server.

Comment 4 info@kobaltwit.be 2012-03-30 21:47:59 UTC
Sorry for the delay in response. I have been kept pretty busy the last couple of months.

I went to the koji page, but I don't understand how to work from there. Am I supposed to find an rpm package there, that I can download and install ? Or should I download an srpm and first build it locally ? I know how to do that, but it's unclear to me what I should take from the koji page to start with.

It would help me a lot of you could briefly explain this, or point me at an explanation somewhere online.

Comment 5 Jiri Popelka 2012-04-02 11:00:26 UTC
It was a scratch-build which means that the built packages were automatically deleted after some time (not sure, but probably couple of weeks). I need to build it once more. Do you want F15 or F16 build this time ?

Comment 6 info@kobaltwit.be 2012-04-03 07:54:40 UTC
F16. I don't have any F15 systems anymore.

Comment 7 Jiri Popelka 2012-04-03 15:19:28 UTC
F16 scratch-build with debug messages for hp backend turned on:
http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=3960290

I usually download all the rpms into one directory and run:
su -c 'yum --nogpgcheck localupdate *.rpm'

Comment 8 Fedora End Of Life 2012-08-07 19:09:10 UTC
This message is a notice that Fedora 15 is now at end of life. Fedora
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