No duplex action on a HPIIID - progress

[Jeff]

Thanks for the links Johannes, I read them and now have a better understanding of the process CUPS uses to print my documents.

If I understand the links I read correctly the page is first identified (as postscript) according to the lists in mime.types.

Then it's processed from ps to cups-ps according to the entry in mime.conv by using pstops. At this point all of the extra options like tray1 and duplexnotumble are added to the file.

Then foomatic-rip and ghostscript have a go at it as defined in my printers ppd file I'm not sure but I think they use pstoraster (defined in pstoraster.conv) and then rastertohp to convert the file to PCL which is sent to the backend (socket in my case)

Have I got all this correct?

I uninstalled PSUtils which removed a version of pstops from /usr/bin. I assume that it was being selected becasue /usr/bin was in my path definition before the cups version.

I've upgraded to CUPS 1.2 and also upgraded foomatic and ghostprint and gimp so they should all be latest versions.

I still can't get the duplexing to work properly.

If I use the Generic PCL 5 Printer Foomatic/ljet3d ppd file the printer gets a signal and goes into duplex mode but all that occurs is that it sends the first page through the duplex tray but prints only the first page on one side. Then it picks up a second sheet and sends it through the duplex tray as well printing page two on it. At least I'm not getting any extra pages anymore.

the error log shows starting pstops then starting foomatic-rip then starting backend.

If I use HP LaserJet 3D Foomatic/ljet3d (recommended) I get the same output and the error log shows the same.

Can anyone give me ahint as to where or how to troubleshoot from here?

At what stage does the print data get formatted into pages and arranged? If Duplex is selected it should arrange to print page two first then page one then four then three etc since the printer prints the back side of the page first when duplexing. This doesn't seem to be happening.

Jeff











>
> Hello,
>
> On Feb 28 19:44 Jeff wrote (shortened):
> > If I take the file pstops from /usr/lib/cups/filter on the working
> > machine and sub it into the non-working machine I get a change of
> > output. I then go back to having an extra page printed out.
> > It seems that it is in this filter section that the PPD file is
> > read and turned into commands the printer understands.
> > If that's correct then this is where I need to look to find out
> > why the DuplexNoTumble is being ignored.
>
> For basic information how the filtering system works, see
> http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:CUPS_in_a_Nutshell
> and for details see "CUPS Filter System Background Information" in
> http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Using_Your_Own_Filters_to_Print_with_CUPS
>
>
> Do you perhaps somehow use the psutils instead of
> or additionally to the original CUPS filtering programs?
> Regarding no duplex and psutils, see
> https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=152448
>
>
> Kind Regards
> Johannes Meixner
> --
> SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstrasse 5, 90409 Nuernberg, Germany
> AG Nuernberg, HRB 16746, GF: Markus Rex
>