[cups.general] Delay before printing in more recent Linux distributions?

[Nick Rahl]

Hi,

There seems to be a delay when printing with CUPS in more recent Linux 
distributions, that was not present in older versions. For example, in 
Ubuntu 8.04, when a file was added to the print cue, it printed 
immediately if the printer was ready. In 10.04, there's a 10-15 second 
delay between the start of the job, and when the printer actually starts 
printing. From searching the Internet exhaustively, I've found people 
using other Linux distros reporting a similar problem, but no solutions 
offered.

The problem is present with CUPS 1.4.3 (the Ubuntu 10.04 default), and 
also in 1.4.5 when I compiled from source. The same document prints 
immediately from an Ubuntu 8.04 system or from Windows.

I was hoping someone might be able to shed some light on the problem. Is 
it a CUPS issue, or a change to Linux in general? Are the developers 
aware this issue exists? Are there any workarounds?

I'm going to try attaching (I don't know if the list accepts 
attachments) a log of what happens when I print a one page document.

You can see that there's a 4 second wait just before 
"prtGeneralCurrentLocalization type is 0, expected 2!". I'm not sure 
what that message means.

It also does:

I [28/Nov/2010:14:44:19 -0500] [Job 3071] Printing page 1, 0% complete...
D [28/Nov/2010:14:44:19 -0500] Discarding unused job-progress event...
D [28/Nov/2010:14:44:19 -0500] Discarding unused printer-state-changed 
event...
I [28/Nov/2010:14:44:19 -0500] [Job 3071] Printing page 1, 1% complete...
I [28/Nov/2010:14:44:19 -0500] [Job 3071] Printing page 1, 2% complete...
I [28/Nov/2010:14:44:19 -0500] [Job 3071] Printing page 1, 3% complete...

Over and over again, for several seconds, and then goes on to:

D [28/Nov/2010:14:44:26 -0500] [Job 3071] Wrote 8192 bytes of print data...
D [28/Nov/2010:14:44:26 -0500] [Job 3071] Read 8192 bytes of print data...

Over and over again, for several more seconds until it finally gets to:

I [28/Nov/2010:14:44:29 -0500] [Job 3071] Print file sent, waiting for 
printer to finish...

At which point the document actually prints. In this example it takes a 
full 10 seconds before the printer starts printing.

Any suggestions are appreciated!

Thanks,
Nick


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