Topic: Frustrating printer problems, please help?

[Happy]

Using SME server 6.01
I've been attempting to get my Samsung ML-1740 printer to work for 5-6 hours now.

I'm using the foomatic ML-1710 drivers for it (I have used these succesfully on Ubuntu and semi-succesfully on FreeBSD in the past).

I've installed everything located here:
http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/rvandenaker/beta/e-smith-cups/SME_6.0/
including in the optional directory.

I've removed LPRng and the other package the guides told me to remove.

Basically I'm pretty sure I've followed the guides to the letter.

anyway when I try to print nothing happens.
the printer status varies from "Stopped, accepting jobs" to "idle, accepting jobs" when I print a test page (pressing start/stop changes the status from one to the other)
the page never gets printed but shows up in the jobs menu as aborted.

any ideas please?
I'm nearly pulling my hair out here!

[raem]

Happy

> I'm using the foomatic ML-1710 drivers for it (I
> have used these succesfully on Ubuntu and semi-
> succesfully on FreeBSD in the past).

You don't install printer drivers on sme server, printer signals are passed through the server to the printer.
You need to configure the correct driver on your Windows workstation though.

[Happy]

You don't install printer drivers on sme server, printer signals are passed through the server to the printer.
You need to configure the correct driver on your Windows workstation though.

I have installed the standard cups printer system.
it doesn't even print out a test page from the cups webadmin page...

Are you saying that I must install a windows driver on my windows machine to print to my SME server box?
Should it not still be able to print locally (from remote logging in or from the webadmin print commands?

From my understanding of what you just wrote it was based off a fresh install of SME server where you only had the option of installing a raw printer driver.
I had no luck whatsoever at getting that to work so I updated e-smith-cups, cups and a few other packages.

[CharlieBrady]

From my understanding of what you just wrote it was based off a fresh install of SME server where you only had the option of installing a raw printer driver.
I had no luck whatsoever at getting that to work so I updated e-smith-cups, cups and a few other packages.

And now you are worse off than before, because no-one knows exactly what you have installed.

When you say "no luck whatsoever", what exactly were your printing problems before you installed the cups stuff?

[raem]

Happy

> Are you saying that I must install a windows
> driver on my windows machine to print to my SME
> server box?

Yes, but with the intent to print from your Windows workstation application to the shared printer that is attached to your sme server.

> Should it not still be able to print locally (from > remote logging in or from the webadmin print
> commands?

What are you trying to do here, print from workstations on your LAN to a shared printer attached to your sme server, or print from the Linux command prompt to a printer attached to your sme server LPT1 port, or both ?

As Charlie says what were your exact problems/errors when trying to print using the default setup, and how were you trying to print then (see above).

[Happy]

What are you trying to do here, print from workstations on your LAN to a shared printer attached to your sme server, or print from the Linux command prompt to a printer attached to your sme server LPT1 port, or both ?

To test that it worked I was trying to print from both the linux command prompt and from the CUPS web based interface
1st image, CUPS web interface Printer menu
http://img155.echo.cx/img155/1130/19jw.png
2nd image, printing test page
http://img155.echo.cx/img155/1707/20sk.png
3rd image, after 'printing'
http://img155.echo.cx/img155/1832/34fx.png
the job number is different but this is the same result I got for all jobs), straight after printing
4th image, after clicking restart job
http://img155.echo.cx/img155/6665/47wp.png

After I got it working from the SME server machine I was going to set up the printer as a local printer on my windows machine and change the port to http://my-box:631/printers/ml1740 (or there abouts)

As Charlie says what were your exact problems/errors when trying to print using the default setup, and how were you trying to print then (see above).

Using the default setup I could only set up a raw printer, I never tried printing through the windows machine but instead gave up when I couldn't figure out how to install the drivers, I found the walkthrough located http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/rvandenaker/beta/e-smith-cups/documentation/
and followed it.

but the only time I ever got a response from the printer itself was when I piped a text file through to /dev/lp0 from the command prompt.


EDIT:
Holy mother of God!
I am the biggest idiot known to man!

I set up a raw printer on advice from this thread, set up the drivers as per usual on my windows machine and tried printing.
works perfectly!
I have just fallen head over heels in love with this distro!
Thank you

out of curiousity though, why is it that I couldn't print from the command prompt or the web based interface with the gdi drivers installed on the sme box?

[raem]

Happy

> I set up a raw printer .....tried printing.
> works perfectly!

Isn't it good that things just work the way they are supposed to !!!


> I am the biggest idiot known to man!

Sorry, I don't think you can claim that title, there are lots of well know bigger idiots in world history.

[Happy]

crud.
I broke it again...
got a single test page printed off, moved the machine to another part of the house and turned it back on.
Suddenly it's giving me no love at all.
it's not printing out anything...
and I was soo close

[raem]

Happy

> I broke it again...

Assuming your cables and connections are OK,
Maybe
http://no.longer.valid/mantis/bug_view_page.php?bug_id=0000026

read near the end for the rpm to update

eg
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/e-smith/updates/6.0/RPMS/noarch/e-smith-LPRng-1.12.0-04.noarch.rpm

[Happy]

I used my tried and tested method of fixing things when I break them beyond repair.
I reinstalled =)

downloaded and installed the SME-server 6.5 RC1 cds
first thing I did is try and set up the printer drivers.
I created a new raw printer on the box,
went to my windows XP SP1 machine and installed the new network printer.

Went to print out a test page and got this page instead:

INTERNAL ERROR - FALSE

POSITION : 0x544 (1348)

SYSTEM   : H6FWSIM/xl_image

LINE     : 467

VERSION  : QPDL 1.16 10-29-2003

anyone found this message before? I've seen it once or twice on various printers in the past but never did understand it

EDIT:

by the way RayMitchell

Thanks a lot for your assistance thus far!
I really really appreciate it.

[raem]

Happy

> ...Using SME server 6.01
> I've been attempting to get my Samsung ML-1740
> printer to work for 5-6 hours now.

> downloaded and installed the SME-server 6.5 RC1 cds

You are trying to confuse us. Now you have changed server OS mid stream !
Doing a OS reinstall does not guarantee a fix as the correct fix is usually something else you have not discovered as yet.
In this case you are only introducing another variable into the troubleshooting flowchart by changing OS's.

> I created a new raw printer on the box,
> went to my windows XP SP1 machine and installed
> the new network printer.

But did you install the Windows XP printer driver for your printer ?
Chances are you may also need to download the latest Windows XP driver for it from the manufacturers website !

Sorry I can't help much with 6.5RC1 as I don't use it, although it should be very similar to 6.0.1.

[Happy]

Well, I do get your point with the changing OS so I went back to a fresh install of SME-server.

I set up the raw printer driver on the SMEbox
I set up the windows XP printer driver (with the latest windows XP drivers)
first time I went to print I got the same message as described in my last post (the INTERNAL ERROR message)
second time I tried to print a test page I got nothing.

I have not installed any other packages, this system is clean.
have you got any suggestions?

[raem]

Happy

> ....so I went back to a fresh install of SME-server

Version ??
Lets guess sme 6.0.1 the contribs.org release.

> have you got any suggestions?

Already given in earlier post quoted below.

Assuming your cables and connections are OK,
Maybe
http://no.longer.valid/mantis/bug_view_page.php?bug_id=0000026

read near the end for the rpm to update

eg
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/e-smith/updates/6.0/RPMS/noarch/e-smith-LPRng-1.12.0-04.noarch.rpm

[raem]

Happy

> have you got any suggestions?

> I set up the windows XP printer driver (with the latest windows XP drivers)

Try this also.

1) Check your printer control panel menu and find the option to print a test page using the printers control buttons ie without being connected to any other computer device. If prints OK then this proves the printer is working, if not get printer fixed.

2) Connect your printer directly to your Win XP parallel port LPT1 and reconfigure the printer driver to point to that port and try printing directly from XP to the locally connected printer. Make sure you send a test print page from the printer driver window rather than using an application.
Does it print OK that way ?
If so we know that the printer and the cables are OK and that the printer driver is OK. If not then there is probably a print driver or cable problem.
I assume in the above test that you are using the parallel port and not the USB port.
 
3) If all above is OK, then connect printer to the sme server parallel port LPT1 using the same cable. Make sure the printer config in server manager points at the correct port ie lp0= LPT1
I assume that you are using the parallel port and not the USB port, at least do so for this test.

It's at this point in this post to you that something clicks. You say earlier
"From my understanding of what you just wrote it was based off a fresh install of SME server where you only had the option of installing a raw printer driver"
"I created a new raw printer on the box"
and again
"I set up the raw printer driver on the SMEbox"

You only get the raw choice when you set up a network printer. I think you are doing the wrong thing here. Network printer means a printer that can act as a device plugged into the LAN cabling with a IP either manually configured or dished out by DHCP. I don't think you want that.

You should delete that printer in server manager and create a new one as follows:

printer name = samsunglaser
Brief description = Samsung ML1740
Location = Local printer port 0 (LPT1)
(or if you only have a USB cable then select the appropriate USB port)
DO NOT select location= Network printer

Local here means local to the server, but of course it is part of an overall network, whereas Network means on the network and not physically directly connected to the server.

Reconfigure the printer driver on your Windows XP workstation to use the new printer share name on sme ie samsunglaser, and then see how you go when printing from a Windows workstation.

[boss_hog]

Hey Happy,
been following your thread. I took an hour and set-up an SME6.5rc1 test box. Install went fine, connected an extra printer to LPT1, then headed to the Server Manager.
Followed the prompts to add printer, selected the "Local printer port 0(LPT1)". Let the SME finish doing its thing.
Went to my XP workstation, control panel, printer and faxes, chose add printer, selected networked printer, browsed to select the printer. At this point XP wants the server to give it the driver, which SME is not going to do. So I elected to choose my own driver, let it install the driver and fired off a test page. Worked fine.
Wanted to test this for you to see if there was a bug in SME6.5rc1, does not appear to be.
Hope this helps
Joe

[Happy]

yeah.
I had no luck when I went to 6.5 RC1.
when I next get time (I've wasted too much time frigging around with this system) I will install windows 98 or XP and see if I can't set up a basic printserver.
If that still doesn't work than my hardware is obviously borked and I'll have to settle for running it from my main computer.

I think the most luck I've ever had was to successfully print out a single test page with raw drivers on the SME server side (6.01 with cups addon) and the windows XP drivers on the client side, but like I said before it just didn't work after that single page =(

[raem]

Heah Happy

I gave you some good steps (1, 2 & 3) to follow in my last post.
Are you going to even bother to follow/try those or are you just wasting peoples time.

How about some feedback !

[soprom]

I also had problems with printing on SME6.5 (Konica Minolta printers). When I tested printing with an HP4si, all was fine. But changing for an different printer gave me ultra-slow response time. Useless as far as I'm concerned.

But SME6.0 is doing fine. Since 6.5 is not a "prod" version, I would suggest not to put into a production role.

There might be a link with a need to restart smb... but I did not investigated further.

[Happy]

Heah Happy

I gave you some good steps (1, 2 & 3) to follow in my last post.
Are you going to even bother to follow/try those or are you just wasting peoples time.

How about some feedback !

Sorry Roy, I've been a little busy.
Yes it prints fine from my winXP lpt port (been using that for months).
I finally had some time to install windows XP on my server machine, that took some time to do but I at least managed to isolate the problem.

Both the lpt port and the usb hub on my server machine is kaput!

this leaves me with two options the way I see it.
Take apart the server machine and put together another old machine, give it a whirl and see how I go (which is hard because the only other box I have requires a specific type of ram that I gave away the other day)

or plugin a PCI lpt port into the server machine (I'll probably end up doing this unless I can get ma ram back!

Sorry for all the troubles and thank you for your time RoyMitchell.

what bugs me is that the hub/lpt port must have recently broken =(

[Happy]

okay, I finally managed to steal a 128mb pc133sdram stick from a friends old computer.
works like a dream in my other old machine.

printing worked first time.

I apologise for all the trouble this faulty hardware has caused.

now all I have to do is set up users for the printer =)