USB hangs (?) TurboPrint printer driver Canon Pro9000

English Hardware
#1

I am looking for anyone who might have seen and/or resolved this issue.

I have used versions of the TurboPrint Driver on openSUSE since perhaps 12.x.
Worked well with 13.2 and early on after migration to 42.1
TurboPrint driver is version 2.35-2

Recently, I have issues where a print job starts, proceeds perhaps 5 - 6%, then hangs.
Turboprint Printer Monitor reports Printer is disconnected.
Occasionally I can get one full page to print, but a follow on page will hang.

I can usually find some combination of power cycling the printer and/or disconnecting/reconnecting USB
that will unhang it for one more page, then hangs again.

I am wondering if some sort of incompatibility with recent USB driver updates has crept in here.

Any thoughts/ideas/similar experience?

#2

I’m not aware of any regressions impacting like this but it’s always possible. Since you’re using a TurboPrint driver, have you also posted on their support forum?

This printer debugging guide has a section dealing with USB communication issues and provides some options that might be worth checking out. If not, a bug report may be your best course of action.

BTW, is there any reason why you prefer using the TurboPrint driver rather than the free gutenprint driver for the Canon Pixma Pro 9000?

#3

Thanks for input deano

I started long enough ago with TurboPrint that there was no Guttenprint for Pro9000.
I have tried the more recent versions, still with little luck.
If anyone has had good luck with Guttenprint for Pro9000, please comment.
Perhaps I am just missing something.

I have posted at TurboPrint as well, no results as yet.

I am just guessing this is USB related, will dig into your reference, thanks.

#4

Further down the debugging guide I linked to was a section dealing with Turboprint. (Just in case you hadn’t noticed it already.)

One known problem is that Turboprint currently ships with a Ghostscript clone based on a very old Ghostscript version, after which we have worked a lot with the original developers of Ghostscript to remove very many crash bugs. So if you have problems that certain (especially more complex) files do not print (and perhaps you find segmentation fault messages of “gszedo” in /var/log/syslog), proceed as follows:

Run the command:
$ turboprint
A window, “Turboprint Control Center” will open. Click “Preferences” at the bottom of the window. In the dialog popping up now uncheck “Use Ghostscript with extensions for Turboprint”. Click “OK” in the dialog window and “Exit” in the main window.

This makes Turboprint using the current version of Ghostscript as shipped with Ubuntu, containing all the latest bug fixes.

#5

Thanks for that reference.
That checkbox is activated, AFAIK always has been.

My debug time is rather limited at the moment, but I have been bouncing around various logs.

One thing I have noticed is this, observed in a console window before and after a printer lockup

lsusb |grep Canon
Bus 005 Device 008: ID 04a9:10b0 Canon, Inc.
......
lsusb |grep Canon
Bus 005 Device 009: ID 04a9:10b0 Canon, Inc.

Seems whatever is going on is causing the Port to ‘walk’.

#6

What happens if you uncheck it (as suggested in the guide)?

My debug time is rather limited at the moment, but I have been bouncing around various logs.

One thing I have noticed is this, observed in a console window before and after a printer lockup

lsusb |grep Canon
Bus 005 Device 008: ID 04a9:10b0 Canon, Inc.
......
lsusb |grep Canon
Bus 005 Device 009: ID 04a9:10b0 Canon, Inc.

Seems whatever is going on is causing the Port to ‘walk’.

It’s behaving as though the port has been reset perhaps?

#7

Doh!
I misread the Guide item, though checking the box was the best option.
So I re-read and of course you are correct.

I unchecked the box and have a couple cycles of successful printing so far.
I’ll report again in a couple days, but looks good for now.

THANKS

But wait, there is more!

I failed to submit the above reply a few days back, and the printer hang returned on my next attempt.

Once the Holidaze wore off, I did receive a response on the Turboprint Forum, found here: http://www.turboprint.info/support/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2995
Following their recommendations, I found that I was using the USP Port (driver), not the enhanced TP-USB driver that maintains status messaging during the print cycle.
Running with the TP-USB driver has resolved my issue

I did request feedback from TurboPrint as to the continued validity of checking, or not checking, the “Use Ghostscript with extensions for Turboprint” item in the Control Center. For the moment, I am running OK with it unchecked.
I’ll update if/when a reply is posted.

Bottom line - this whole mess is likely due to a failure on my part to read the TurboPrint documentation w.r.t. TP-USB

Thanks again, Deano, for nudging me along.

#8

Thanks for the update. It might be helpful to others who come searching for help using TurboPrint. Not being a TurboPrint user I wasn’t aware of the proprietary ‘tpu’ CUPS backend. Always a good idea to seek support from the vendor in cases like this.