I'm trying to print some images from Digikam and having no luck at all.
I have two printers both of which have been working quite happily over the past few months, one is an HP7310, the other is an HP1320. The HP7310 is connected by ethernet, the HP1320 is connected via my router (USB printer -> router).
When I print from Digikam everything appears to work perfectly but nothing actually comes out of the printers. Digikam finishes, the print jobs appear in CUPS and that's where they stay for ever as far as I can see. They stay in state 'processing' for a while and then end up 'pending'.
Any ideas how to get something actually printed?
On Wednesday 07 January 2009 15:53:40 Chris G wrote:
I'm trying to print some images from Digikam and having no luck at all.
I have two printers both of which have been working quite happily over the past few months, one is an HP7310, the other is an HP1320. The HP7310 is connected by ethernet, the HP1320 is connected via my router (USB printer -> router).
When I print from Digikam everything appears to work perfectly but nothing actually comes out of the printers. Digikam finishes, the print jobs appear in CUPS and that's where they stay for ever as far as I can see. They stay in state 'processing' for a while and then end up 'pending'.
Any ideas how to get something actually printed?
So both printers won't print from Digikam? First, this mostly negates the possibility of a hardware fault. (Can you confirm that, though?)
Is it Digikam that won't print? Or will nothing else print either? What if you print form Digikam to PDF (if you're on KDE this facility is provided, otherwise you can install and configure CUPS PDF[1]) and then print the PDF (with, like, evince, KPDF, lpr, etc.)?
I'm guessing you must have tested these possibilities, but it would be useful to know if we are to diagnose the problem.
[1] http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2006/03/23/print-to-pdf-using-cups-pdf/
On Wed, Jan 07, 2009 at 09:57:30PM +0000, Richard Lewis wrote:
On Wednesday 07 January 2009 15:53:40 Chris G wrote:
I'm trying to print some images from Digikam and having no luck at all.
I have two printers both of which have been working quite happily over the past few months, one is an HP7310, the other is an HP1320. The HP7310 is connected by ethernet, the HP1320 is connected via my router (USB printer -> router).
When I print from Digikam everything appears to work perfectly but nothing actually comes out of the printers. Digikam finishes, the print jobs appear in CUPS and that's where they stay for ever as far as I can see. They stay in state 'processing' for a while and then end up 'pending'.
Any ideas how to get something actually printed?
So both printers won't print from Digikam? First, this mostly negates the possibility of a hardware fault. (Can you confirm that, though?)
Yes, but things have developed a little, see below.
Is it Digikam that won't print? Or will nothing else print either? What if you print form Digikam to PDF (if you're on KDE this facility is provided, otherwise you can install and configure CUPS PDF[1]) and then print the PDF (with, like, evince, KPDF, lpr, etc.)?
Other programs print OK, e.g. if I do "ls | lpr" I get immediate output.
I also just tried printing a web page from Firefox, both printers OK.
I'm guessing you must have tested these possibilities, but it would be useful to know if we are to diagnose the problem.
Now to the 'below' bit!
The pictures *eventually* came out on the LJ1320, it took an hour or so per page. They never came out on the OJ7310 and have disappeared from the print queue.
There seems to be a serious speed problem on the LJ1320, when I printed (the same) web page on the LJ1320 and the OJ7310 it came out much faster on the OJ7310. The printer driver for the LJ1320 is shown by CUPS as "HP LaserJet 1320 series Postscript (recommended)", is this an issue (i.e. does postscript/ghostscript make it slow)?
On 07-Jan-09 22:16:19, Chris G wrote:
[...] Yes, but things have developed a little, see below. [...] Now to the 'below' bit!
The pictures *eventually* came out on the LJ1320, it took an hour or so per page. They never came out on the OJ7310 and have disappeared from the print queue.
There seems to be a serious speed problem on the LJ1320, when I printed (the same) web page on the LJ1320 and the OJ7310 it came out much faster on the OJ7310. The printer driver for the LJ1320 is shown by CUPS as "HP LaserJet 1320 series Postscript (recommended)", is this an issue (i.e. does postscript/ghostscript make it slow)?
I have a HP LJ 1300 (same series as yours), and *always* send PostScript to it. It is pretty snappy for most things, but bit-mapped images lead to bulky PostScript. This can take a while (up to a couple of minutes per page) to get through to the printer (over a parallel cable).
Sometimes, it is all too much for the limited RAM (16MB, manufacturer's default; "5.6MB available") installed on it. Then the printer may hang forever[*], with its "activity" light blinking. It is possible that this is your problem, since you are printing photos. I should install a supplementary 64MB module, but am not sure what to put in (and HP's own RAM upgrades are hideously expensive). Maqybe you should think along these lines. It is compatible with your oibservation that "ls | lpr" works. But also note that something in CUPS will be coverting the ASCII output from 'lpr' into PCL (HP's "Printer Command Language") or PostScript. [*] except that there is a 5-min timeout.
The other thing I would say (which may have nothing to do with your problem) is that I have never properly come to terms with the switch from good old lpd (and printcap) to CUPS some years ago. So I print from any of my machines by NFS-mounting onto a machine running pld (from 1998) and doing "lpr <whatever>" from the command-line in that machine. This works!
Hoping this helps -- but I recognise that printer problems of this kind can be pretty perplexing. Maybe this may at least throw a bit of light.
Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 07-Jan-09 Time: 23:30:53 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On Wed, 2009-01-07 at 23:30 +0000, Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk wrote:
Sometimes, it is all too much for the limited RAM (16MB, manufacturer's default; "5.6MB available") installed on it. Then the printer may hang forever[*], with its "activity" light blinking. It is possible that this is your problem, since you are printing photos. I should install a supplementary 64MB module, but am not sure what to put in (and HP's own RAM upgrades are hideously expensive)
Kingston do a couple of modules that are compatible with the 1320.
KTH-LJ4100/128 and KTH-LJ4100/64 for 128MB and 64MB respectively
Not many people will hold them in stock but prices would be in the region of £30 for the 128MB part and £20 for the 64
BTW as per many of the low end/consumer grade HP printers, the original 16MB module is socketed but should not be removed as this also contains the flash for the printers firmware..therefore there is a maximum of 144MB using the secondary socket. On the original 1300 series the factory ram was soldered in so you can't make this mistake.
On Thu, Jan 08, 2009 at 01:37:53AM +0000, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Wed, 2009-01-07 at 23:30 +0000, Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk wrote:
Sometimes, it is all too much for the limited RAM (16MB, manufacturer's default; "5.6MB available") installed on it. Then the printer may hang forever[*], with its "activity" light blinking. It is possible that this is your problem, since you are printing photos. I should install a supplementary 64MB module, but am not sure what to put in (and HP's own RAM upgrades are hideously expensive)
Kingston do a couple of modules that are compatible with the 1320.
KTH-LJ4100/128 and KTH-LJ4100/64 for 128MB and 64MB respectively
Not many people will hold them in stock but prices would be in the region of £30 for the 128MB part and £20 for the 64
BTW as per many of the low end/consumer grade HP printers, the original 16MB module is socketed but should not be removed as this also contains the flash for the printers firmware..therefore there is a maximum of 144MB using the secondary socket. On the original 1300 series the factory ram was soldered in so you can't make this mistake.
As I said it's not worth it for me as I have another printer for 'pretty pictures', I'll just have to remember not to send anything too memory consuming to the 1320.
The KTH-LJ4100/128 is only £22.98 from Lambdatek who I use quite extensively for hardware. It might *just* be worth it, especially if I add it to another order and share carriage costs.
On 08-Jan-09 01:37:53, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Wed, 2009-01-07 at 23:30 +0000, Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk wrote:
Sometimes, it is all too much for the limited RAM (16MB, manufacturer's default; "5.6MB available") installed on it. Then the printer may hang forever[*], with its "activity" light blinking. It is possible that this is your problem, since you are printing photos. I should install a supplementary 64MB module, but am not sure what to put in (and HP's own RAM upgrades are hideously expensive)
Kingston do a couple of modules that are compatible with the 1320.
KTH-LJ4100/128 and KTH-LJ4100/64 for 128MB and 64MB respectively
Not many people will hold them in stock but prices would be in the region of £30 for the 128MB part and £20 for the 64
BTW as per many of the low end/consumer grade HP printers, the original 16MB module is socketed but should not be removed as this also contains the flash for the printers firmware..therefore there is a maximum of 144MB using the secondary socket. On the original 1300 series the factory ram was soldered in so you can't make this mistake.
Thanks, Wayne, I'll try to follow that up! Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 08-Jan-09 Time: 07:46:10 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On Wed, Jan 07, 2009 at 11:30:56PM -0000, Ted Harding wrote:
On 07-Jan-09 22:16:19, Chris G wrote:
[...] Yes, but things have developed a little, see below. [...] Now to the 'below' bit!
The pictures *eventually* came out on the LJ1320, it took an hour or so per page. They never came out on the OJ7310 and have disappeared from the print queue.
There seems to be a serious speed problem on the LJ1320, when I printed (the same) web page on the LJ1320 and the OJ7310 it came out much faster on the OJ7310. The printer driver for the LJ1320 is shown by CUPS as "HP LaserJet 1320 series Postscript (recommended)", is this an issue (i.e. does postscript/ghostscript make it slow)?
I have a HP LJ 1300 (same series as yours), and *always* send PostScript to it. It is pretty snappy for most things, but bit-mapped images lead to bulky PostScript. This can take a while (up to a couple of minutes per page) to get through to the printer (over a parallel cable).
I don't normally send pictures to it at all as I have the OJ7310 inkjet for that. It was really only a test to see what was working when I sent stuff from Digikam to the 1320.
Sometimes, it is all too much for the limited RAM (16MB, manufacturer's default; "5.6MB available") installed on it. Then the printer may hang forever[*], with its "activity" light blinking. It is possible that this is your problem, since you are printing photos. I should install a supplementary 64MB module, but am not sure what to put in (and HP's own RAM upgrades are hideously expensive). Maqybe you should think along these lines. It is compatible with your oibservation that "ls | lpr" works. But also note that something in CUPS will be coverting the ASCII output from 'lpr' into PCL (HP's "Printer Command Language") or PostScript. [*] except that there is a 5-min timeout.
As above, not really an issue, I'll just have to remember not to send complex pictures to the 1320.
The other thing I would say (which may have nothing to do with your problem) is that I have never properly come to terms with the switch from good old lpd (and printcap) to CUPS some years ago. So I print from any of my machines by NFS-mounting onto a machine running pld (from 1998) and doing "lpr <whatever>" from the command-line in that machine. This works!
Hoping this helps -- but I recognise that printer problems of this kind can be pretty perplexing. Maybe this may at least throw a bit of light.
Yes, thanks, it at least clears up the LJ1320 side of things I think.
-
Chris G -
Richard Lewis -
Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk -
Wayne Stallwood