[cups.general] Problem with Brother MFC-J835DW and CUPS-3.1.5-2.4.1 lpd

[Johannes Meixner]

Hello,

On Jan 17 14:23 David A.Smith wrote (excerpt):
> ... network printing problem with cups-1.5.3-2.4.1 in OpenSUSE 12.2
....
> I have a Hewlett Packard LaserJet 3 connected locally to this computer
> to the parallel port /dev/lp0 and a Brother MFC-J835DW All-in-One printer
> WIFI networked through a LinkSys Broadband Router, Model WRT54GX2.

WIFI is one of the tomost complicated ways how to access a printer
and even more for an all-in-one device. Theoretically WIFI is
"just like cable network" but practically it is not. There are
many more issues with WIFI compared to cable network.

To avoid issues with the network connect the printer via USB
and configure the printer as local printer for testing.
Only when this works, do the next step and connect the printer
via network and re-configure it.
For some information regarding usual network printing see
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Printing_via_TCP/IP_network

> I am able to print to the Hewlett Packard LaserJet 3 fine
> without any problems. However, I cannot print to the Brother
> MFC-J835DW printer through the network. I have configured
> the cups with the Brother Solution Linux Printer Driver files...

Did you contact Brother because you got this software from
them and not from CUPS?
In particular because "Brother" states to have the "Solution".
I mean this very seriously:
Why don't you first of all ask those who provided you the
"Solution Linux Printer Driver" for the actual "Solution"?
If you did already contact Brother, please tell what their reply was
so that we know about their point of view regarding this issue.

> Which my configuration looks as follows:
>
> (Idle, Accepting Jobs, Shared)
> Description:	Brother MFC-J835DW CUPS
> Location:	Family_Room
> Driver:	Brother MFC-J835DW CUPS (color, 2-sided printing)
> Connection:	lpd://182.168.12.105/binary_p1
> Defaults:	job-sheets=none, none media=na_letter_8.5x11in sides=one-sided
>
> When I try a test print from cups, the following happens:
....
> ... State ... stopped  "usr/lib/cups/filter/pstops failed"

As far as I see this is the reason why it does not print.
When a filter fails, there is no printout, see in particular
"What does the filter system do and how does it work?" in
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:CUPS_in_a_Nutshell

A failing filter is (usually) totally unrelated to how the
printer is connected which means that in your case the WIFI
connection seems not to be a reason why it does not print.

First and foremost you need to find out why
"/usr/lib/cups/filter/pstops failed".
Therefore you need CUPS debug messages.

In your case the print queue was stopped "State stopped".
You should first clean up the print queue content and then
re-enable it:

1)
Clean up the print queue. As user 'root' run "cancel -a <queue_name>"
(replace <queue_name> with your print queue name).

2)
Re-enable printing for your print queue. As user 'root'
run "cupsenable <queue_name>" (replace <queue_name> with
your print queue name).

Then get CUPS debug messages for one single print job
as desribed at "Usually provide CUPS debug messages" in
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:How_to_Report_a_Printing_Issue

> The /var/log/cups/error_log file shows the following errors:
>
> E ... [cups-polld 192.168.12.105:631]
>   CUPS-Get-Printers failed: server-error-operation-not-supported

As far as I see this cups-polld issue is totally unrelated
regarding whether or not the Brother MFC-J835DW prints.

I don't know your network environment but above you
wrote "Connection: lpd://182.168.12.105/binary_p1"
and now there is "192.168.12.105".
Is this really correct or is there a typo "182" versus "192"?

Regardless of you network environment, I assume that on
192.168.12.105:631 there is no CUPS server process running
(or it is running but does not allow access from remote)
from which a cups-polld could poll the print queues, see
"Intrinsic design of CUPS <= 1.5 for printing in the network"
and "BrowsePoll" in
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:CUPS_in_a_Nutshell
and
http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/doc-1.5/man-cups-polld.html

> I know the IP Address is correct for the Brother MFCJ835DW printer
> because I am able to access the scanner part of it through the
> brscan4 driver using the same IP Address. Also, I have success printing
> to the Brother MFCJ835DW from Mandriva Linux 2008.1 using the same
> setup on this same computer fine. I have already tried disabling
> the firewall, which didn't make any difference. I also tried changing
> the url connection to socket://192.168.12.105:9100 or
> socket://192.168.12.105 with no difference in results.
> Nothing else is on my network with address.

Regarding firewall see "Regarding firewall" in
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:CUPS_in_a_Nutshell
and
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:CUPS_and_SANE_Firewall_settings

> I am wondering if there
> could be a bug in cups-1.5.3-2.4.1 release when network printing?

Very likely there is no bug in CUPS - otherwise I should have noticed
many issue reports similar to yours.


Kind Regards
Johannes Meixner
-- 
SUSE LINUX Products GmbH -- Maxfeldstrasse 5 -- 90409 Nuernberg -- Germany
HRB 16746 (AG Nuernberg) GF: Jeff Hawn, Jennifer Guild, Felix Imendoerffer