[Bug 802942] Re: printing PDFs (and other complex documents) from GTK applications fails

Fri Aug 20 10:35:58 UTC 2021

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On 2015-09-14T16:01:27+00:00 Thomas Mayer wrote:

Created attachment 8660794
PDFs-FF40.tar.gz

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:40.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/40.0
Build ID: 20150826185918

Steps to reproduce:

Environment:
I have FF 40.0.3 and TB 38.2.0, ubuntu 14.04.3, Kernel 3.19, standard CUPS setup with Kyocera FS-1020d printer, PPD installed from various places (tried PPD provided by ubuntu, by Kyocera and by openprinting project .deb file), Printer with Paper Feeder option, 128M option, Kyocera Printserver (builtin).

All user specific settings for printing were reset in about:config
(variables which contain 'print' in the name).

Reproduce with:
Case 1 (test1.pdf taken from cups):
- Open web page https://boerse.dab-bank.de/maerkte-kurse/aktien.html
- Print page

Case 2 (test2.pdf taken from cups): 
- Open web page https://www.dab-bank.de/Service/Kontakt/
- Print page

Case 3 (print-to-file.pdf/print-to-file-cups.pdf):
- Open web page https://www.dab-bank.de/Service/Kontakt/
- Print to PDF File via printer dialog (cups_pdf), store to print-to-file.pdf
- Print the exported file with lpr (print-to-file-cups.pdf from /var/spool/cups)

Case 4 (print-to-file-cups-from-evince.pdf):
- Open web page https://www.dab-bank.de/Service/Kontakt/
- Print to PDF File via printer dialog (cups_pdf), store to print-to-file.pdf
- Print with evince (print-to-file-cups-from-evince.pdf from /var/spool/cups)

Actual results:

Case 1:
- Similar web page prints just perfectly

Case 2 + 3:
- Printer heats up, but does not print. Print job is lost, even cups thinks it was printed.

Case 4:
- Evince (which has Cairo 1.13) can print FF's ouput pdf file perfectly

Expected results:

Expected result: All 4 test cases should be printed.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cups/+bug/802942/comments/16

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On 2015-09-14T16:23:53+00:00 Thomas Mayer wrote:

I experience similar problems with Thunderbird 38.2.0. Note that >90% of
all web pages and emails print out just fine, so in general everything
works (printer configuration and printer hardware work in general, and
there are no problems with other applications. Using chromium (Version
44.0.2403.89 Ubuntu 14.04, 64-bit) I don't have the problem.

The difference with evince is that it uses Cairo 1.13 (~2014) while
Gecko uses a patched version of Cairo 1.9.5 (~2010).

In the meantime there have been a lot of improvements to Cairo in
respect to PDF: http://cgit.freedesktop.org/cairo/log/?qt=grep&q=pdf

Ubuntu printing maintainer and leader of the OpenPrinting project, Till
Kamppeter sees a high likelyhood that this issue is fixed as soon as
gecko/FF/TB is updated to a recent Cairo version (or Gecko's Cairo
version gets patched respectively).

This issue affects multiple ubuntu users on launchpad, and I experience
it myself for years (since at least ~2011).

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cups/+bug/802942/comments/17

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On 2015-09-15T04:59:48+00:00 Thomas Mayer wrote:

There is also a tracking bug 739096 for the Cairo version. This bug
deals with other issues (e.g. performance of graphics), so it is not a
duplicate. However, bug 739096 might fix this issue (bug 1204551) as
well in case you don't want to go for patching Cairo 1.9.5 again.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cups/+bug/802942/comments/20

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On 2016-06-17T09:37:57+00:00 Thomas Mayer wrote:

As of FF 47.0, ubuntu 16.04, one of the test scenarios (Case 2) still
does not print (with the other scenarios not tested again):

- Open web page https://www.dab-bank.de/Service/Kontakt/
- Print page

=> Printer Kyocera fs-1020d shows some action (fan blows, led indicates
to get data), but then nothing prints out, and the printer goes idle
again. As if nothing had happened. The print job is not visible to
ubuntu any more which can be considered as a data loss (no print job, no
printed page, no error visible to user).

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cups/+bug/802942/comments/21

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On 2016-06-18T07:55:17+00:00 Thomas Mayer wrote:

In ubuntu 16.04, I tried out the libcairo which ubuntu comes shipped
with and compiled FF47.0 myself, using the build-option --enable-system-
cairo.

After the change, it works: I can finally print https://www.dab-
bank.de/Service/Kontakt/ on my old Kyocera fs-1020d. Same for
https://boerse.dab-bank.de/maerkte-kurse/aktien.html.

This is the version of libcairo I used (and which also worked!):

apt-cache show libcairo2
Source: cairo
Version: 1.14.6-1

I made the build with:

sudo apt-get install packaging-dev libcairo2 libcairo2-dev
<= install all the dependencies for the build

pull-lp-source firefox xenial
cd firefox-47.0+build3/
echo "ac_add_options --enable-system-cairo" >> debian/config/mozconfig.in
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -b
sudo dpkg -i firefox_47.0+build3-0ubuntu0.16.04.1_amd64.deb

I can't wait to see FF and TB to come shipped with a new version of
libcairo.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cups/+bug/802942/comments/24

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On 2016-06-18T16:41:33+00:00 Thomas-mayer wrote:

Reproduced against current nightly build 50.0a1 (2016-06-18)

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cups/+bug/802942/comments/27

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On 2016-07-18T22:06:45+00:00 Thomas-mayer wrote:

Similar issues with brother printers:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/foomatic-db/+bug/1306849

Not sure if this is also libcairo related.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cups/+bug/802942/comments/32

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On 2021-08-15T21:31:11+00:00 Mathew Hodson wrote:

>From comments in bug 739096, this should depend on bug 739096. Do you
still see the issue in Firefox 90 or later?

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cups/+bug/802942/comments/35

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On 2021-08-16T10:35:28+00:00 Thomas Mayer wrote:

Hi Mathew, just a few weeks ago, I got rid of my Kyocera-FS1020d (which
was built in 2004, almost two decades ago and still running).

That said, I cannot test anything with this printer any more. Maybe
someone else is still affected and can test what happens?

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cups/+bug/802942/comments/36

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Title:
  printing PDFs (and other complex documents) from GTK applications
  fails

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