Printing form app to CUPS-pdf not working anymore

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

Hi again!

The workflow worked for 5+ years under TW with the app (monexplex), which had no update for more than a year (!) now, so the problem is in TW:

Once a month I print from the app to CUPS-pdf, that did work in the beginning of March, but doesn’t anymore today. The app throws a window “Access violation”, no job ever shows up in CUPS-pdf.

Starting the app in terminal and printing to CUPS-pdf throws no errors in the terminal.

Maybe the directory CUPS-pdf prints to (/var/spool/cups-pdf/username) has too limited permissions? So I chmod 777 'ed the directory, but did not help.

Any ideas what changed in CUPS-pdf throughout the last month?

#2

@suse_rasputin most applications can print direct to a pdf? I’ve not needed that for years…

#3

Yepp, but this app relies on printers in the underlying OS. It was my workflow for years…

#4

Does cups-pdf work as expected when used by another application?

#5

Maybe show us the output of

lpstat -t
#6

Last chance in cups-pdf was on Tue Jun 8 20:34:52 UTC 2021: File cups-pdf.changes of Package cups-pdf - openSUSE Build Service
You must look for some other changes, which breaks cups.pdf.
Can’t help, because I don’t use Tumbleweed. On openSUSE Leap 15.4 no problems with cups.pdf

#7

Does cups-pdf work as expected when used by another application?

Yes

#8 
lpstat -t
scheduler is running
no system default destination
device for CUPS-PDF: cups-pdf:/
CUPS-PDF accepting requests since Thu 20 Aug 2020 13:43:41 CEST
printer CUPS-PDF is idle.  enabled since Thu 20 Aug 2020 13:43:41 CEST
#9

CUPS-pdf on TW is version

rpm -qi cups-pdf
Name        : cups-pdf
Version     : 3.0.1
Release     : 2.8
Architecture: x86_64
Install Date: Sun 26 Mar 2023 19:21:00 CEST
Group       : Productivity/Publishing/PDF
Size        : 226667
License     : GPL-2.0-or-later
Signature   : RSA/SHA512, Mon 20 Mar 2023 06:24:29 CET, Key ID 35a2f86e29b700a4
Source RPM  : cups-pdf-3.0.1-2.8.src.rpm
Build Date  : Mon 20 Mar 2023 06:24:18 CET
Build Host  : hurricane3
Packager    : https://bugs.opensuse.org
Vendor      : openSUSE
URL         : https://www.cups-pdf.de/
Summary     : Virtual PDF printer for CUPS
Description :
CUPS-PDF is a PDF writer backend for CUPS.
It provides a virtual CUPS-PDF printer which produces PDF files
so that application programs which have no built-in support
to "Save as PDF" could print to CUPS-PDF to get a PDF file.
For details see /usr/share/doc/packages/cups-pdf/README
and http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Printing_to_PDF
Distribution: openSUSE Tumbleweed

…while on a rescue install with Debian Bullseye (same app, same version, printing fine in CUPS-pdf) it is

dpkg -l printer-driver-cups-pdf
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                    Version      Architecture Description
+++-=======================-============-============-=======================================
ii  printer-driver-cups-pdf 3.0.1-9      amd64        printer driver for PDF writing via CUPS
#10

Ok, then your focus needs to be with the application really. Perhaps reach out to the vendor for support.

#11

Why? There has been no update for more than a year for this app. Something in TW must have changed within the last month. Debian still functional…

#12

You should be aware that the moneyplex version shipped with openSUSE is a brutally outdated 11 year! old version. There is no possibility for openSUSE to update to an actual supported version as Matrica switched to a paid version model.

It is expected that an 11 year! old software will break earlier or later and there is no possibility to turn the time back as even the manufacturer ended support for this version ages ago…

1 Like
#13

Yes, but the issue isn’t necessarily with cups-pdf itself. Perhaps it calls some function provided by a library that has now changed. It may require help from the developer to understand the underlying cause of the “access violation” error you mentioned.

+1 to hui’s comments.

#14

It’s not moneyplex from suse. The maker of the app has no focus on printing, otherwise he would include a .pdf print/export feature. The maker of the app is busy to keep up with banks changing FinTS interface…

This is just a TW issues.

#15

You need to take it up with them.

#16

So you expect the maker of an app to figure out which random modification TW made within the last 4 weeks to render cups-pdf unusable? Really? :wink:

#17

You claimed yourself that cups-pdf is working with all other applications…
So it is not unusable at all…
And as already pointed out by kieltux, the last change to cups-pdf was in 2021!

#18

No, I expect them to provide debug steps needed to help identify what might be causing the error you reported. The ball is in your court really.

#19

Yepp, the change was in TW, not cups-pdf… I simply switch to Debian.

#20

Presumably a configuration change causes the issue: CUPS-PDF Prints Blank Pages - #27 by caf4926 I refrain from using software that causes trouble of this kind.