Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 31371
can't print from kmail
Last modified: 2007-04-18 12:32:06 EDT
I have kmail installed but I cannot print. The dialogs come up but nothing happens. Other application such as mozilla can print. I suspect that it is the generates postscript that is wrong. If I "print" to a file and then use lpr to print still nothing. The printer is a HP4000 using the jetdirect interface.
Works perfectly here, both printing directly to a Lexmark Color JetPrinter 3000 and printing to a file and displaying it in kghostview. This must be a bug in the postscript parser in your printer. (kmail generates valid postscript, but the printer doesn't undestand it).
OK, I believe I have a better idea what the bug is. This is on qa0328. The hardware is Beta Hardware system #33. The printer is an HP Laserjet 4000 which is connected via an HP JetDirect Ex Plus box. I defined two print queues (both to the same IP address). One is a jetdirect interface (port 9100) and the other is a "Unix LPD" for queue "ram" on the ip address. kmail prints correctly if I use the "unix LPD" queue. It does NOT work if I use the jetdirect queue. The kmail print "panel" shows the Unix LPD OK properly but not the JEtDirect queue. It appears that kmail (or something in qt) is interpreting things incorrectly. On the kmail print panel for the JetDirect queue (lp), Printer is lp: :sh: :ml=0: :mx=0: :sd=/var/spool/lpd/lp: :lp= Host is locally connected [!!] Comment is Aliases and a whole bunch of stuff.
Created attachment 14383 [details] My /etc/printcap file created by printtool
Still present in qa0401
I ran another test (on qa0401) and kwite works fine -- it is only kmail that screws up with a jetdirect (port 9100) interface.
that's really weird, seeing as they both use the same printing interface...
They (kmail and kwrite) don't "look" like they use the same interface. The print-panel popup that comes up looks completely different.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 35193 ***
Oops. It appears that the "bug" reported as 35193 is NOT the same problem. Even with that problem resolved, kmail will still not print to a JetDirect queue and the print panel as a wierd entry for the JetDirect queue although a Unix Printer queue "looks" proper and prints OK. Gene
I believe I see what kmail is getting confused about. The new printconf package creates an /etc/printcap file for the JetDirect interface with an entry: :lp=|/usr/share/printconf/jetdirectprint: in the definition for "lp". For some reason, it is using the text after lp= rather than just lp as the "name" of this print queue. This is definitely a kmail problem.
I have looked at the source code and this is NOT a kmail bug. Kmail appears to be one of the few (only?) application which uses qt's QPrint function. The problem is in the parsePrintcap function located in qprintdialog.cpp. Their "simplistic" parsing of /etc/printcap treats the qhole string of characters (minus whitespace) between the beginning of a definition and the first '|' character to be the "name" of the print queue. Circumvention: assign an alias to the print queue. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 35937 ***