Bug#931560: closed by Brian Potkin (Re: Bug#931560: cups-backend-bjnp: refuses to print with "out of paper" error)
Although I completely understand Louis' reasoning that still leaves recent bjnp-cups unusable for people like me. I would like to give a bit more background about my use case and suggest a couple of alternative solutions. My use case: This specific printer, MG-6150, wastes ink like crazy due to "cleaning up" every time is powered up and after a number of pages being printed (I wish I knew that before buying it). I bought it to print my own pictures once in a while, but most of the time I use it as a "normal" printer to print documents, receipts, etc. Because the printer wastes color ink even when printing B&W (which should only use the BK ink) due to the frequent cleaning, I have resigned myself to print my color pictures in batches up to the point where the color ink is almost gone, and then just continue to use it as B&W printer using only the BK ink -- until I have a number of pictures I would like to print again, and then I refill all color inks and print all those pictures. So what I have done is to configure two printers in CUPS, one for "normal" printing which is set to B&W, normal paper and low resolution, etc. There is another "photo" printer which is set to color, photo paper, etc. Recent versions of bjnp-cups break this use case, since they refuse to print if any ink cartridge is empty, even if only the BK cartridge would be used (this use case works with the Windows driver). Now, as I said, I totally understand why you don't want to have a default which could potentially fry users' print heads if they're not careful. So I have two suggestions: 1. Allow printing if the output is B&W and there is BK ink. I don't know enough about CUPS internals to know if this sort of metadata is available to the backend at printing time. This would be ideal since that would work out of the box and it would be safe. 2. Otherwise, have a backend setting configurable via URL query parameter in which you tell the backend to skip the ink checks. Ideally there could be one parameter for skipping just the color inks and one for all inks. Power users like me can opt in to this behaviour, and assume full responsibility for any damage they might cause to their printers due to misuse (that won't be any worse than the situation on versions < 2.0). This won't affect anybody, unless they read the docs and understand how to enable this (and the risks). I urge you to consider one of the suggestions above. I believe that this bug should not really be closed because bjnp-cups >= 2.0 breaks the use case of using the printer as B&W printer, which works with the official Canon drivers and used to work with bjnp-cups < 2.0. Please let me know if I can be of any help.
Bug#931560: cups-backend-bjnp: refuses to print with "out of paper" error
I'm including the bjnp_log of test page that fails to print, with cups-backend-bjnp=2.0.1-1. The same messages repeat every 30s (automatic retries). I have redacted host names and IP addresses. WARNING: 000.010 BJNP logging to /var/log/cups/bjnp_log, debug level = DEBUG DEBUG: 000.010 cups-bjnp: argv[0] = bjnp://redacted:8611/?debuglevel=DEBUG DEBUG: 000.010 cups-bjnp: argv[1] = 6 DEBUG: 000.010 cups-bjnp: argv[2] = root DEBUG: 000.010 cups-bjnp: argv[3] = Test Page DEBUG: 000.010 cups-bjnp: argv[4] = 1 DEBUG: 000.010 cups-bjnp: argv[5] = job-uuid=urn:uuid:1506ebb4-b195-364c-4ec8-871420d2e58f job-originating-host-name=localhost date-time-at-creation= date-time-at-processing= time-at-creation=1562518460 time-at-processing=1562518460 DEBUG: 000.012 Connecting to 10.xx.xx.xx port 8611 (IPv4) DEBUG: 000.012 Sending UDP command to 10.xx.xx.xx port 8611(IPv4) DEBUG: 000.132 Sending UDP command to 10.xx.xx.xx port 8611(IPv4) INFO: 000.134 Identity = MFG:Canon;CMD:BJL,BJRaster3,BSCCe,NCCe,IVEC,IVECPLI;SOJ:TXT01,BJNP2,BJNPe;MDL:MG6100 series;CLS:PRINTER;DES:Canon MG6100 series;VER:1.040;STA:19;FSI:03;HRI:5;MSI:DAT,E5,HFSF;PDR:4;PSE:ACAM61205; DEBUG: 000.134 Printer model = Canon MG6100 series DEBUG: 000.134 Sending UDP command to 10.xx.xx.xx port 8611(IPv4) INFO: 000.137 Printer status: http://www.canon.com/ns/cmd/2008/07/common/"; xmlns:cijn="http://www.canon.com/ns/wdp/2008/01/print/";> GetStatusResponse OK idle MarkerSupplyAttention BSCCe BST:04;PID:00,00,00;CHD:CL;LVR:GAL,AT;MID:141D20;CTK:M,IO,/,PBK,IO,/,GY,IO,/,BK,SET,/,C,IO,/,Y,LOW;CIR:M=000,PBK=000,GY=000,BK=100,C=000,Y=010;DJS:NO;DBS:NO;DWS:1500,1570;DOC:4,00,NO;DSC:NO;FSI:03;HRI:5;PRC:2,0;MSI:DAT,E5,HFSF;PDR:4;HRC:NO;TCA:M,AC,/,PBK,AC,/,GY,AC,/,BK,AC,/,C,AC,/,Y,AC; 288 DEBUG: 000.137 Read printer status: 4, Printing = 0, Busy = 0, Error = 0 DEBUG: 000.137 Sending UDP command to 10.xx.xx.xx port 8611(IPv4)
Bug#931560: cups-backend-bjnp: refuses to print with "out of paper" error
Package: cups-backend-bjnp Version: 2.0.1-1 Severity: important Tags: upstream Dear Maintainer, Printer: Canon PIXMA MG6150 Backend: bjnp Upgraded to Debian buster, cups now refuses to print with error "Network host '...' is out of paper, will retry in 30 seconds..." Tried restarting the printer, restarting cups, manually removing 'Reason' lines from /etc/cups/printers.conf (while cups is off), nothing solved the issue. I took a look at upstream changelog and noticed this for 2.0: > Ink level reporting is added as well as improved error handling. I suspected that there could be a regression, so I downgraded the package (and only this package) to the version in stretch (1.2-2) and the problem went away instantly. I didn't even need to restart cups: the new bjnp backend started printing in the next automatic retry. Tried upgrading again and problem returned; downgraded and problem disappeared. Note that I have a few ink cartdriges that are nearly running out, but not low enough that the printer refuses to print. It could be possible that the new ink level reporting code is misinterpreting this condition as an "out of paper" condition. Unfortunately I don't have new cartdriges at hand to test this hypothesis. -- System Information: Debian Release: 10.0 APT prefers stable APT policy: (500, 'stable') Architecture: amd64 (x86_64) Kernel: Linux 5.0.15-1-pve (SMP w/4 CPU cores) Kernel taint flags: TAINT_PROPRIETARY_MODULE, TAINT_OOT_MODULE Locale: LANG=C.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) (ignored: LC_ALL set to C.UTF-8), LANGUAGE=C.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) (ignored: LC_ALL set to C.UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system) Versions of packages cups-backend-bjnp depends on: ii libc6 2.28-10 ii libcups2 2.2.10-6 Versions of packages cups-backend-bjnp recommends: ii printer-driver-gutenprint 5.3.1-7 cups-backend-bjnp suggests no packages. -- no debconf information
