[solved] Printing gone strange - how to set it up again

[lmilano]

Re: Printing gone strange - how to set it up again

I think it is related to the update. I have one machine running 4.2.4, and one running 4.3.0. Only the latter had the issue ...

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Printing gone strange - how to set it up again

Today's large karmic update did nothing to resolve the printing/hplip/python problem, even though it included updates to hplip and several python packages. While searching through synaptic for python packages to try, a database program called "treeline" came up, which I downloaded and tried. It actually produced a useful error message:

greenman@Wolfenstein:~$ treeline
Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "/usr/share/treeline/treeline.py", line 33, in <module>
  from PyQt4 import QtCore, QtGui
ImportError: cannot import name QtCore
greenman@Wolfenstein:~$

So the problem is the call in line 38, which is "from PyQt4 import QtCore, QtGui".
Everything related to qtcore and qtgui is installed.
At this point it really does look like a bug, but I have no idea WHOSE bug -- hplip, python, kde, kubuntu, ubuntu -- or what to do about it. But it looks like it is not fixing itself.

FYI -- I have reloaded by jaunty system from last week's backup -- I need functional printing -- so I have only karmic to experiment with. But as of two days ago, the problems were the same.

[lmilano]

Re: Printing gone strange - how to set it up again

Maybe the module has been renamed? I'll take a look if I have the time ... thanks for the info!

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Printing gone strange - how to set it up again

Thanks for any assistance possible.
I tried setting my printer up with CUPS, and using the same, and trying updated, driver files, I get only blank sheets. So there is some deeper problem with printing as well.

Finding Unstable Bugs And Regressions

[lmilano]

Re: Printing gone strange - how to set it up again

Hi,

I just updated my eee running kde 4.3 to latest. It removed python-qt4-common, but it doesn't seem to be an issue. I can load the hp-* applications, like the systray, hp-toolbox ...

Lets compare out installations, here I go:

lmilano@asucena:~$ dpkg -l |grep ^[i] |grep python-qt
ii python-qt4                 4.5.2-0ubuntu1~jaunty2                   Python bindings for Qt4
ii python-qt4-dbus              4.5.2-0ubuntu1~jaunty2                   DBus Support for PyQt4

lmilano@asucena:~$ dpkg -l |grep ^[i] |grep cups                              
ii bluez-cups                 4.32-0ubuntu4.1                      Bluetooth printer driver for CUPS                                          
ii cups                    1.3.9-17ubuntu3.2                     Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - server
ii cups-bsd                  1.3.9-17ubuntu3.2                     Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - BSD commands
ii cups-client                1.3.9-17ubuntu3.2                     Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - client programs (
ii cups-common                1.3.9-17ubuntu3.2                     Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - common files
ii cups-driver-gutenprint           5.2.3-0ubuntu5                       printer drivers for CUPS
ii cupsddk                  1.2.3-5ubuntu1                       CUPS Driver Development Kit
ii cupsddk-drivers              1.2.3-5ubuntu1                       CUPS Driver Development Kit - Driver files
ii hal-cups-utils               0.6.19+git20090217-0ubuntu7                CUPS integration with HAL
ii libcups2                  1.3.9-17ubuntu3.2                     Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - libs
ii libcupsimage2               1.3.9-17ubuntu3.2                     Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - image libs
ii python-cups                1.9.45-0ubuntu2                      Python bindings for CUPS
ii python-cupshelpers             1.1.3+git20090218-0ubuntu19.2               Python modules for printer configuration with CUPS

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Printing gone strange - how to set it up again

I tried doing an update on the broken jaunty system today, and it didn't fix anything.
Next, I did a complete restore of my jaunty system from backup, and a complete upgrade from the ppa's.
Now printing in jaunty is working fine, including hplip, systray, etc.
Pulseaudio is also behaving itself, which it didn't before.

Conclusions:
1. Community untested upgrades can do irreparable damage.
2. Wait at least 96 hours after the announcement of any major upgrade before actually installing it. That's enough time for unforseen problems to be
discovered, and patches applied.
3. Take the risk and help out by discovering and reporting those problems. But also keep backups.

My karmic setup is, however, completely messed up. Sound doesn't work, frequent plasma crashes, no printing, even when set up directly through CUPS. Too messed up to be worth trying to fix. Once I can verify that everything is working right in the newly upgraded jaunty, I think it's time to try the jaunty>karmic upgrade again. That often fixes things that break mysteriously.

I did the dpkg -l listings just as you did, on the working upgraded jaunty system, and they are identical with yours.
On the broken karmic system, python-qt4-common is still there, but there are worse problems, as CUPS itself isn't working, so I think it best to do a complete upgrade, rather than pick away at it.

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Printing gone strange - how to set it up again

For the fun (?) of it, I reloaded my karmic system from backup and ran the upgrades again.
This did not go so well; audio is still flaky (no oss output from things like firefox), no hplip, hp-setup or hp-systray. The hp stuff is still quitting with the "error: Unable to load Qt4 support. Is it installed?" error. CUPS prints out only blank pages. Well, I expect this kind of thing with karmic in its development stage, although I should say that prior to last Tuesday, it was all working perfectly.
But the problems with jaunty and the upgrades seem resolved, though I had to load from backup and re-run the upgrades to fix it. So the remaining issues are, at least in my installation, karmic and not jaunty issues.

[olembe]

Re: Printing gone strange - how to set it up again

Hi folks,

I managed to solve all this, so here it is for the record...

First, the weird printing problem I had, where everything was coming out rotated 90 degrees, turned out to be an Open Office problem, not a Kubuntu problem. The document I was printing was originally created in Microsoft Word, and had one page - split off as a separate section - rotated to landscape format. Word can handle this, but it seems OOo can't!

Second, I managed to fix the hpsystray issue. I had been trying to install the PyQT toolkit for some Python programming and this seemed to be the issue. To fix this, I downloaded the latest versions of SIP and PyQT4 from http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk. I installed SIP first according to the README instructions (this is crucial - SIP has to be installed first as it's the basis for PyQT4) then PyQT4. HOWEVER! PyQT4 wouldn't install. It turned out I had to install the QT4 dev tools:

sudo aptitude install qt4-dev-tools

THEN I could install PyQT4. Now my hpsystray is all working fine - kaloo kalay! I was able to purge the qt4-dev-tools once it was all happy.

It's a long story, but perhaps it'll be useful for someone who ends up with the same problem as me.

[ka9qlq]

Re: [solved] Printing gone strange - how to set it up again

Well I'm running 10.04 Lucid and had the problem pop up
I can print fine but if I go into the printer config I get

"The service 'Printer Configuration' does not provide an interface 'KCModule' with keyword 'system-config-printer-kde/kcm-scpk.py'The factory does not support creating components of the specified type."

I had color printing disabled and just want to re-enabled it now that I got a new color cartridge but it won't let me and I admit I'm
A. not smart enough to figure out how to fix this short of reinstalling. (something I REALLY don't want to do)
B. haven't a clue what/when upgrade/install broke it as normally I don't change things that often in printing

Grrrr

Update
I just found out you can change what I need from the file>print dialog