Bug 450357 - Network printing unusable.
Summary: Network printing unusable.
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: kernel
Version: 9
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
low
high
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Kernel Maintainer List
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2008-06-06 22:02 UTC by John Gorman
Modified: 2009-07-14 18:05 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2009-07-14 18:05:22 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
Result of printer troubleshooting process (37.60 KB, text/plain)
2008-06-06 22:48 UTC, John Gorman
no flags Details
test.prn (136.26 KB, application/octet-stream)
2008-06-10 10:32 UTC, Tim Waugh
no flags Details
successful tcpdump (19.05 KB, application/octet-stream)
2008-06-11 14:41 UTC, John Gorman
no flags Details
failed tcpdump (17.15 KB, application/octet-stream)
2008-06-11 14:43 UTC, John Gorman
no flags Details

Description John Gorman 2008-06-06 22:02:36 UTC
Description of problem: network printing unusable


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): cups-1.3.7-2.fc9.i386


How reproducible: 95% failure rate


Steps to Reproduce:
1. Configure a printer for AppSocket/HP JetDirect
2. Example Device URI: socket://172.21.1.16:9100
3. Print a test page
  
Actual results:

The print stream freezes, then gets corrupted.
then prints hundreds of pages with one line of
gibberish on each page.


Expected results:

A nice test page output.


Additional info: Network printing works fine under Fedora 4 and
works fine for Gutsy Gibbon.  Our two Fedora 9 boxes both cannot
print to either of two different model network printers. It appears
to be a low level network flow problem.  A really short job such
as "date | lp" may work a few times in a row.  Slightly longer
jobs such as "lp /etc/passwd" rarely complete. The standard
printer test page never completes.

Comment 1 Tim Waugh 2008-06-06 22:29:13 UTC
Please try running the troubleshooter (System->Administration->Printing, then
Help->Troubleshoot), and attach the resulting troubleshoot.txt file here.  Thanks.

Comment 2 John Gorman 2008-06-06 22:48:59 UTC
Created attachment 308577 [details]
Result of printer troubleshooting process

As usual the test page started printing hundreds of pages with a single line of
gibberish at the top. I cancelled the print job "cancel 35" on Fedora 9, then I
cancelled the job using the cancel button on the printer several times. These
had no effect in stopping the flow of ruined pages until I rebooted my system.
Yikes!

Comment 3 Tim Waugh 2008-06-10 10:32:35 UTC
Created attachment 308796 [details]
test.prn

Attached: output of "gs -q -dBATCH -dPARANOIDSAFER -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pxlmono
-r600x600 -sOutputFile=- - </usr/share/cups/data/testprint.ps >/tmp/test.prn"

Please try printing the attachment this like:

lp -dlexmark -oraw test.prn

Does it give any different result?  The difference is that this avoids using
perl to post-process the output.

Comment 4 John Gorman 2008-06-11 12:19:28 UTC
I tried printing test.prn in raw mode and got identical behavior with the
hundreds of corrupted pages.

I don't think that this is any kind of foomatic problem. It is something much
more low level where the stream handshaking breaks down, blocks get dropped, and
the printer loses track of what is formatting commands and what is data so it
prints pure garbage.

The reason that I think this is that sometimes really small jobs such as
"date|lp" make it through correctly but sometimes they don't.  Once a job fails,
every job after that prints pure garbage until a reboot.

Comment 5 Tim Waugh 2008-06-11 13:00:29 UTC
OK, let's look at the network traffic then.

Please start a terminal window and become root (with 'su -'), and then run this
command:

tcpdump -s0 -U -w cups.pcap host 172.21.1.16

Then submit a job using 'date|lp'.  Note whether it succeeds and name it
appropriately using either:

mv cups.pcap good.pcap

or

mv cups.pcap bad.pcap

Repeat until you have both good and bad captures.  Then please attach them both
here.  Thanks.

Comment 6 Tim Waugh 2008-06-11 13:01:22 UTC
Forgot to say, once the job has completed, press Ctrl-C in the terminal window
that is running tcpdump to stop it (sorry if this is obvious).

Comment 7 John Gorman 2008-06-11 14:41:01 UTC
Created attachment 308932 [details]
successful tcpdump

Successful tcpdump of:

echo "
This printed correctly.
This printed correctly.
This printed correctly.
This printed correctly.
" | /usr/bin/lp

Comment 8 John Gorman 2008-06-11 14:43:44 UTC
Created attachment 308933 [details]
failed tcpdump

tcpdump of failed print:

echo "
This printed correctly.
This printed correctly.
This printed correctly.
This printed correctly.
" | /usr/bin/lp

Corrupted pages started printing and the job stayed in the lpq
until I issued a cancel command.

Comment 9 Tim Waugh 2008-06-12 14:35:47 UTC
This is a network problem.  We are desperately trying to send packets to that
system, but sometimes it is not seeing them or is receiving them incorrectly.

Comment 10 John Gorman 2008-06-12 17:49:13 UTC
Ok, but every other machine on the network running RHEL4, RHEL 5, CentOS 5,
Fedora 4, Ubuntu 7.10, Ubuntu 8.4, Windows XP and Windows Vista can print to
these printers. Only the two Fedora 9 boxes cannot. What is so fragile about
Fedora 9 networking that it cannot handle what everything else can handle just
fine?  Do we want this fragility to end up in RHEL 6?

Comment 11 Tim Waugh 2008-06-12 20:27:53 UTC
Reassigning to kernel for further analysis.

Comment 12 Chuck Ebbert 2008-09-22 17:15:15 UTC
There is something wrong with the network on those boxes. Does some other OS work on those same machines? You could try a Live CD for example.

It looks like bad cables or something like that.

Comment 13 John Gorman 2008-09-22 17:38:09 UTC
Hi Chuck

There is no doubt that the network has problems. Sometimes
other OSes take quite a while to print. However they *do*
eventually print, unlike Fedora 9 which chokes.

See comment #10 for a list of other OSes that do work,
basically everything else.

I cannot provide any more information from the Fedora 9
workstations. I reinstalled both of the Fedora 9 machines
with CentOS 5 which does work.

It isn't just printing that is fragile for Fedora 9. I was
also having problems with curl and tomcat which CentOS 5
fixed. Printing I can live without. Basic networking
functionality I cannot!

Best, John

Comment 14 Bug Zapper 2009-06-10 01:27:06 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 9 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 30 (thirty) days from now Fedora will stop maintaining
and issuing updates for Fedora 9.  It is Fedora's policy to close all
bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained.  At that time
this bug will be closed as WONTFIX if it remains open with a Fedora 
'version' of '9'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' 
to a later Fedora version prior to Fedora 9's end of life.

Bug Reporter: Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that 
we may not be able to fix it before Fedora 9 is end of life.  If you 
would still like to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it 
against a later version of Fedora please change the 'version' of this 
bug to the applicable version.  If you are unable to change the version, 
please add a comment here and someone will do it for you.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's 
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events.  Often a 
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes 
bugs or makes them obsolete.

The process we are following is described here: 
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping

Comment 15 Bug Zapper 2009-07-14 18:05:22 UTC
Fedora 9 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2009-07-10. Fedora 9 is 
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further 
security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of 
Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version.

Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.


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