Spool to Lexmark m412 crashes on large images

[Josh Berkus]

I have a Linux machine which is a network print server for the office.  It receives print jobs from macs and Linux machines and prints to a Lexmark printer.  As long as I print text documents, it works fine.

However, if I print anything which has large images on it ... Google maps, or most web pages, for example ... cups locks up and can't complete the print job.  The trigger really seems to be any print file which is too large.

Current configuration is:
Ubuntu 10.4 server
Cups 1.3.9
Lexmark m412 laser printer
OSX 10.4 and 10.5 network print clients over IPP

However, I had similar issues with the earlier config: SuSE 9.0 with the same printer.

When I try to print something like a google map, what happens is:

1) The printing light starts flashing on the printer
2) The whole print spool locks up behind the stalled job
3) Eventually cups admin stops responding (after around 10-15 minutes)
4) I restart CUPS
5) I cancel the job

Note that this printer will print large images fine when hooked directly to one of the macs, or to the Linux laptop.  This *appears* to be specifically an issue with network printing.

Recently, I enabled debugging info in CUPS admin, and what's happening in the log when the job is stalled is:

D [20/Apr/2010:18:37:01 -0700] cupsdNetIFUpdate: "lo" = localhost:631
D [20/Apr/2010:18:37:01 -0700] cupsdNetIFUpdate: "eth0" = 192.168.1.3:631
D [20/Apr/2010:18:37:01 -0700] cupsdNetIFUpdate: "lo" = localhost:631
D [20/Apr/2010:18:37:01 -0700] cupsdNetIFUpdate: "eth0" = fe80::21d:72ff:febc:cce7%eth0:631
D [20/Apr/2010:18:37:01 -0700] [Job 206] Wrote 8192 bytes of print data...
D [20/Apr/2010:18:37:01 -0700] [Job 206] Read 8192 bytes of print data...
D [20/Apr/2010:18:37:01 -0700] [Job 206] Wrote 8192 bytes of print data...
D [20/Apr/2010:18:37:01 -0700] [Job 206] Read 8192 bytes of print data...
D [20/Apr/2010:18:37:01 -0700] [Job 206] Wrote 8192 bytes of print data...
D [20/Apr/2010:18:37:01 -0700] [Job 206] Read 8192 bytes of print data...
D [20/Apr/2010:18:37:02 -0700] [Job 206] Wrote 8192 bytes of print data...

... and so on for 1000's of lines.

Suggestions?