[SOLVED] Neon Upgrade Blues - Printer

[kenj70]

I recency did a fresh install of KDE Neon to the kubuntu 20.04.1 release. When I went to set up the printer I found, much to my surprise, that my Canon Pixma MX-922 All-In-One printer was already listed there! Oh how convenient, I thought. I sent a test print and there was definitely communication because the printer started reacting and my print dialog showed the ink cartridge levels. However, I got an error message on the printer asking me to add paper to the upper tray. The upper tray is for photo size paper and I never use it. I manually selected the other tray in the configuration but it still tried sending the print job to the wrong tray.

How can a new OS installation discover and add a printer driver by itself? This is a first for me. Since something was defective about this setup I decided to remove the printer and install it again. However, the printer refuses to go away!! As an alternative I created a new printer and selected that one to print a test page. Same problem. I can remove the new printer but not the original. This is bazaar!

I wonder what happened here? Can anyone suggest a cure?

-=Ken=-

[jlittle]

I'm on Kubuntu and this happened with my Brother printer with 18.04. I tried a lot but eventually gave up. The best I could do was to disable it.

[oshunluvr]

Same thing with my HP. It seems to work OK but it is real slow at starting up. You might look and see if there is a PPD file that sets the default tray

[kenj70]

Thanks for the reply guys. This is all very odd. I am thinking about downloading a fresh copy of kubuntu and getting some disk tools so I can thoroughly clean my NVMe drive. When I first went to install kubuntu the disk tool wanted to use my my 4 GB HDD to install - which contains all my video assets. I disconnected power from both HDDs on my system. If a new install is picking up the printer then the reformat option doesn't really reformat the drive. It must only be marking the files as deleted - and somehow reading from the still existent files!

Maybe I should turn my printer off during the install?!

-=Ken=-

[kenj70]

I am downloading a fresh copy of Kubuntu and writing it to a DVD on my wife's Win10 machine. I will unplug my two HDDs and power off the wifi printer. I have a copy of the following tools in my collection:

Ultimate Boot CD
Trinity Rescue Kit
Darik's Boot and Nuke

Which one would you use? Or would you use something simpler?

-=Ken=-

[kenj70]

As it turns out, none of the tools I listed work on NVMe drives! I even tried using Knoppix, the Swiss Army Knife of distros, that I loaded on a fast thumb drive last year but it had no disk tools at all. So, I guess I have to use terminal commands. That's OK if you know what you are doing. I'm glad there are many tutorials all over the 'net because I can't remember all that stuff. Knoppix 8.1 didn't understand the nvme commands at all and didn't offer them to be installed.

Since I really wanted to install kubuntu I decided to try again. While in the trial mode I invoked Konsole, installed nvme-cli and formated the NVMe drive. The 250 GB drive formatted so fast - I wondered if it really did so! Then, I went through the kubuntu install again but it crashed again. I invoked the terminal to send a bug report. The response said the bug had already been reported, numerous times. The web page that was presented for bug reports showed (I think) that kubuntu was having problems with loading nVidia drivers, among other things.

Next, I started over and did a minimal install with no extras. Success! I am now running minimal kubuntu 20.04.1. Now to deal with the printer.

I opened the Printers dialog and since my printer was turned off there were no printers listed. I turned on my wireless connected printer and, whoa! My printer auto-magically shows up. I have never seen that before! What is going on? That doesn't seem right. Previously, I thought my system was picking a "phantom" from an earlier install. Hense the reformat.

I selected Print Test Page and, sure enough, it refused to print. The message in the Printer dialog said, "Unable to open print file: Permission denied" The ink levels did show up though. The 'Remove Printer' selection is now grayed out and NOT available! Is it time, once again, to visit the dreaded bug reporting website?

This has been a bazaar few days! Any thoughts?

-=Ken=-

[jlittle]

BTW, I think you mean bizarre... a bazaar is a market... or maybe I don't get something...

[kenj70]

Hey, John. Oops, what a difference a silly little letter makes! I am in the market for something less bizarre. <grin>

[kenj70]

OK, I'm about done!

I filed a Bugzilla report.
I tried my "ace in the hole" Turboprint which I bought two years ago in order to get the Canon AIO to print with gLables. Turboprint can't find the network printer - and I tried several protocols.

If I can't print from kubuntu 20.04.1 then I will simply have to go elsewhere. What would you do at this point?

<frustrated> -=Ken=-

[kenj70]

OK, I'm back in business.

I noticed on the kubuntu download page the they continue support on 18.04 until next April. So, I am now running kubuntu 18.04! It prints just like it's supposed to. It even scans with Skanlite without having to fiddle with the firewall like I had to with KDE Neon.

-=Ken=- <finally happy>

[jlittle]

Release upgrading to 20.04 should keep support for the printer. Come April that might be a good option. I seem to recall being in that situation, where something worked because I'd upgraded, but new installs didn't.

[kenj70]

Thanks John. It has been a long road for me to get to kubuntu. I noticed in System Settings that I can designate how often updates are submitted to my system. I am at an age where I do very little fiddling with my system and most of all want everything stable and predictable. This looks like a good fit.

-=Ken=-