Just installed SuSE 11.1 (clean install) and cannot get my IBM 4216-031 Personal PagePrinter II to work properly.
OpenOffice software can get to it but seems to print only 5 pages then quits. Otherwise, it seems to work here.
Firefox printing results in a message printed on the printer of “This print job requires a PostScript language Level 2 printer”.
CUPS cannot print a test page. It seems to be printing it, the light on the printer blinks, then stops - no paper ever moves.
For more detail: The printer is an old postscript level 1 printer with 2meg of memory. I supplied a ppd file (ibm31514.ppd that came with it many years ago) when I installed it. I tried the generic level 1 postscript.ppd file that came with SuSE with no change to the results.
When I print from OpenOffice, I notice the “Manage Printing” function in CUPS shows no activity, but the “KJobViewer” shows the print job and its progress. Same thing occurs when I print from Firefox (actually get the error message instead of any print output). When I go into the CUPS “Manage Printing” application and display “Show all jobs”, they are actually all there - just never saw them pass through when they were active.
I’m new at this and would appreciate someone pointing to a direction to solve this situation.
> Just installed SuSE 11.1 (clean install) and cannot get my IBM 4216-031
> Personal PagePrinter II to work properly.
I’ve had a dozen 4019’s and one or two 4029’s on my server, if I remember
correctly. Their PostScript came as an add-on and never worked that well.
But those printers had a perfectly working Proprinter, PCL and HPGL/2
support.
For ‘normal’ printing, I’d go for the PCL interpreter.
Start with trying a simple HP Laserjet series II driver.
If it works, you’ll have to investigate a bit more to see how recent a
Laserjet driver you can use, to get the best quality (well, resolution) out
of it. Don’t bother going beyond Laserjet 4+. Beyond that, drivers tend to
use PostScript. With the limited RAM it has, the PS interpreter won’t leave
much free for actual printing.
Just the opposite for me. The 4216-031 works natively as a PostScript printer just fine under Windows. The hplj and proprinter modes are the ones that are unpredictable.
When OpenOffice prints to it, it looks great - just won’t do more than 5 pages at a time for some reason. Even though watching the printer monitor it seems to be sending all pages asked for. I can probably get by with 5-page ‘chunks’ for a while from OpenOffice, but not being able to print from my browser, e-mail and just using CUPS in general is the real problem. Core to the problem seems to be CUPS at the moment.
OK. Sequentially tried some different source printouts:
I [07/Mar/2009:19:33:08 -0700] [Job ???] Request file type is application/postscript.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:33:08 -0700] [Job 69] Adding start banner page “none”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:33:08 -0700] [Job 69] Adding end banner page “none”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:33:08 -0700] [Job 69] File of type application/postscript queued by “root”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:33:08 -0700] [Job 69] Queued on “IBM4216_031” by “root”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:33:08 -0700] [Job 69] Started filter /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstops (PID 21773)
I [07/Mar/2009:19:33:08 -0700] [Job 69] Started backend /usr/lib/cups/backend/parallel (PID 21774)
I [07/Mar/2009:19:34:28 -0700] [Job 69] Completed successfully.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:38:07 -0700] [Job ???] Request file type is application/pdf.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:38:07 -0700] [Job 70] Adding start banner page “none”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:38:07 -0700] [Job 70] Adding end banner page “none”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:38:07 -0700] [Job 70] File of type application/pdf queued by “mikecebula”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:38:07 -0700] [Job 70] Queued on “IBM4216_031” by “mikecebula”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:38:07 -0700] [Job 70] Started filter /usr/lib/cups/filter/pdftops (PID 21789)
I [07/Mar/2009:19:38:07 -0700] [Job 70] Started filter /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstops (PID 21790)
I [07/Mar/2009:19:38:07 -0700] [Job 70] Started backend /usr/lib/cups/backend/parallel (PID 21791)
I [07/Mar/2009:19:39:24 -0700] [Job 70] Completed successfully.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:40:04 -0700] [Job ???] Request file type is application/postscript.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:40:04 -0700] [Job 71] Adding start banner page “none”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:40:04 -0700] [Job 71] Adding end banner page “none”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:40:04 -0700] [Job 71] File of type application/postscript queued by “mikecebula”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:40:04 -0700] [Job 71] Queued on “USB_IBM_4216-031” by “mikecebula”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:40:04 -0700] [Job 71] Started filter /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstops (PID 21822)
I [07/Mar/2009:19:40:04 -0700] [Job 71] Started backend /usr/lib/cups/backend/usb (PID 21823)
I [07/Mar/2009:19:40:40 -0700] [Job 71] Canceled by “mikecebula”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:40:58 -0700] [Job ???] Request file type is application/postscript.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:40:58 -0700] [Job 72] Adding start banner page “none”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:40:58 -0700] [Job 72] Adding end banner page “none”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:40:58 -0700] [Job 72] File of type application/postscript queued by “mikecebula”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:40:58 -0700] [Job 72] Queued on “IBM4216_031” by “mikecebula”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:40:58 -0700] [Job 72] Started filter /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstops (PID 21826)
I [07/Mar/2009:19:40:58 -0700] [Job 72] Started backend /usr/lib/cups/backend/parallel (PID 21827)
I [07/Mar/2009:19:41:14 -0700] [Job 72] Completed successfully.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:41:54 -0700] [Job ???] Request file type is application/postscript.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:41:54 -0700] [Job 73] Adding start banner page “none”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:41:54 -0700] [Job 73] Adding end banner page “none”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:41:54 -0700] [Job 73] File of type application/postscript queued by “mikecebula”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:41:54 -0700] [Job 73] Queued on “IBM4216_031” by “mikecebula”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:41:54 -0700] [Job 73] Started filter /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstops (PID 21829)
I [07/Mar/2009:19:41:54 -0700] [Job 73] Started backend /usr/lib/cups/backend/parallel (PID 21830)
I [07/Mar/2009:19:42:23 -0700] [Job 73] Completed successfully.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:42:44 -0700] [Job ???] Request file type is application/postscript.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:42:44 -0700] [Job 74] Adding start banner page “none”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:42:44 -0700] [Job 74] Adding end banner page “none”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:42:44 -0700] [Job 74] File of type application/postscript queued by “mikecebula”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:42:44 -0700] [Job 74] Queued on “IBM4216_031” by “mikecebula”.
I [07/Mar/2009:19:42:44 -0700] [Job 74] Started filter /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstops (PID 21834)
I [07/Mar/2009:19:42:44 -0700] [Job 74] Started backend /usr/lib/cups/backend/parallel (PID 21835)
I [07/Mar/2009:19:43:35 -0700] [Job 74] Completed successfully.
Job 69 was a print test page from Yast2 - completed successfully - printer blinked as data transferred, never moved the paper.
Job 70 was a print of a ppd file from kwrite - completed successfully - printer blinked as data transferred, never moved the paper.
Job 71 was directed to the wrong printer port - I cancelled it.
Job 72 & 73 were single page prints from OfficeWriter - completed successfully - both pages came out OK. So far, OfficeWriter seems to be the only thing working correctly - at least as far as I have exercised it. Only plain text tried so far in all examples.
Job 74 was a screen from Firefox - completed successfully - however the output was the message “This print job requires a PostScript Language Level 2 printer.”
The only thing I see questionable in the error log is the start and end banner page references - but that seems to take place whether the printout is actually successful or not.
>
> OK. Sequentially tried some different source printouts:
>
> I [07/Mar/2009:19:33:08 -0700] [Job ???] Request file type is
> application/postscript.
> I [07/Mar/2009:19:33:08 -0700] [Job 69] Adding start banner page
> “none”.
> I [07/Mar/2009:19:33:08 -0700] [Job 69] Adding end banner page “none”.
> I [07/Mar/2009:19:33:08 -0700] [Job 69] File of type
> application/postscript queued by “root”.
<snip>
> The only thing I see questionable in the error log is the start and end
> banner page references - but that seems to take place whether the
> printout is actually successful or not.
>
> Mike
>
Mike;
I suggest you first un-install the printer and then try to install directly
with CUPS (not YAST). You can access CUPS here: http://localhost:631/
When you need to authenticate the user is: root, the password is: root’s
password.
Sometimes YAST seems to miss install a printer and this may be one. There is
no guarantee this will help; but it can’t hurt.
Remember that Google is your friend.
–
P. V.
“We’re all in this together, I’m pulling for you.” Red Green
Didn’t make any difference. As far as not listing the printer, it’s a PostScript printer and they are ALL supported - at least to some extent. Unless someone, somewhere arbitrarily decided that PostScript Level 1 printers are going to all be considered obsolete - but I haven’t found that statement yet.
Incidentally it works for everything in OpenOffice applications - including pictures and graphs, etc. It’s just that everything else won’t work. I believe it is a CUPS problem and OpenOffice doesn’t route through CUPS.
AFAIK OO just uses the same printer queue as everything else. Have you tried printing a Postscript file from the command line with lp or lpr?
Also while probably not a factor in this case, the complexity of the Postscript document that can be printed depends on the RAM available in the printer. So it’s quite possible that a simple document can print but a complex one cannot in some cases and this has nothing to do with the spooler.
OK. I typed a single plain text sentence using plain Courier font in KWrite and one in OfficeWriter as follows:
This is a test print from KWrite
This is a test print from OWriter
I sent each directly to the printer. Only the OWriter version came out. The KWrite version made the printer panel blink as data was transferred, but the paper never moved.
I then printed each to a .ps file and used lp to send each .ps file to the printer. The results were exactly the same.
The testkw.ps file is 11.7KB and the testow.ps file is 128.6KB. If there is a way to attach them for your review - tell me how.
Can you preview the files using ghostview? Do they both show? What is the paper size in the Kwrite version? I’ve seen printers that reject jobs because they were printed for the wrong paper type.
Just tried to print this problem screen from Firefox.
First sheet out of printer says “This print job requires a PostScript Language Level 2 printer.”
Second sheet is printed by the errorhandler and indicates the same error as in a previous message.
Verified in the ppd file that the option is set
*LanguageLevel: “2”
I’m pretty sure that this machine is a PostScript Level 1 printer - not sure if “LanguageLevel” means the same thing or not.
I printed the Firefox postscript info to a .ps file and displayed it with ghostview. It displays fine. If I look at the .ps file with KWrite, I can see the message “This print job requires a PostScript Language Level 2 printer.” in the .ps file
Does your printer support other page languages like PCL? If so, it might actually be better to tell CUPS it’s a PCL printer and get CUPS to render PS to PCL using ghostscript filters in the background.
Since KWrite might have a problem with PostScript, I tried the same simple sentence with Kate. Errorhandler reports:
ERROR: invalidfont
OFFENDING COMMAND: stringwidth
STACK:
(
31.0
248
(
I have set all options in Kwrite, Kate, OfficeWriter and Firefox to keep it simple and only use Courier font since that is one that is in ROM in the printer.
Looking at the .ps file generated by Kate, for some reason part of what was generated was “Courier-Uni”. Everywhere else in the file it looks like just Courier was specified - as expected.
ArialMT was found in the KWrite test .ps output.
Mozilla.ps contained a Helvetica reference (used to print the ‘requires’ message), and has ‘cairo-font’ references in it.
Seems only OpenOffice can follow the rules with their own options.
Getting late for me (old man). Yes, original HP laserwriter code is one of the options (Proprinter and Diablo are the others). None of them have been satisfactory with Windows, but I’ll give them a try tomorrow - when my brain doesn’t feel so fried.
I think you’ll find that Postscript Level 1 is rather limiting and it would be a constant struggle to get applications to restrict themselves to that subset. That’s why I suggested letting ghostscript do the conversion.
