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Topic: cups printing seems to have "evolved" (Read 2378 times) previous topic - next topic
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cups printing seems to have "evolved"

So I recently had to swap out my main printer and I did my due dilergence.  I think it is Linux friendly.  I removed my old printer from the cups interface and dropped the new printer on the network where is was assigned an IP address.   The printer is a brother HL-L3280CDW series.  Cups dilegently found it on the network, which actually suprised me.  I guess Ahavi is working.  As I recall, Ahavi has been a dependency for cups for a while. 

The printer came up with three options

Code: [Select]

Available Printers

Virtual PDF Printer (CUPS-PDF)
Brother HL-L3280CDW series (Brother HL-L3280CDW series)
Brother HL-L3280CDW series (Brother HL-L3280CDW series)
Brother HL-L3280CDW series (Brother HL-L3280CDW series (driverless))



None of them install, although I think I wanted to try the driverless one most

This came up in the logs"

Quote
E [21/Aug/2025:23:26:32 -0400] [CGI] Unable to create PPD file: Could not poll sufficient capability info from the printer (ipps://Brother%20HL-L3280CDW%20series._ipps._tcp.local/, ipps://BRN94DDF8670038.local:443/ipp/print) via IPP!
E [21/Aug/2025:23:26:32 -0400] copy_model: empty PPD file
E [21/Aug/2025:23:26:32 -0400] [Client 51] Returning IPP server-error-internal-error for CUPS-Add-Modify-Printer (ipp://localhost/printers/Brother_HL-L3280CDW_series_) from localhost.
E [21/Aug/2025:23:30:12 -0400] [CGI] Unable to create PPD file: Could not poll sufficient capability info from the printer (ipps://Brother%20HL-L3280CDW%20series._ipps._tcp.local/, ipps://BRN94DDF8670038.local:443/ipp/print) via IPP!
E [21/Aug/2025:23:30:12 -0400] copy_model: empty PPD file
E [21/Aug/2025:23:30:12 -0400] [Client 70] Returning IPP server-error-internal-error for CUPS-Add-Modify-Printer (ipp://localhost/printers/Brother_HL-L3280CDW_series_) from localhost.

That was a bit exaspterating.  The first error seems to say the printer is not reporting its capabilities correctly.  Others in the community have purchased this printer so I am a bit puzzled by that and not sure what I can do to resolve this issue.

then it says "copy_model: empty PPD file".  I'm not sure if that is a cascade effect on the error stack of a real problem.  I am inclined to think it is real.

downloaded foomagic with pacman and a bunch of printer support files, over 30 megs of them to sit on my hard drive (good that file storage is cheap these days).

There current installed base for cups looks like this - it is asstonishing - really... cups was supposed to solve this complexity not make it worst..

Quote
flatbush:[ruben]:/var/log/cups$ sudo pacman -Ss cups|grep installed
world/cups 2:2.4.12-2 [installed]
world/cups-filters 2.0.1-2 [installed]
world/cups-openrc 20210505-2 (openrc-world) [installed]
world/cups-pdf 3.0.2-1 [installed]
world/libcups 2:2.4.12-2 [installed]
world/libcupsfilters 2.1.1-2.1 [installed]
world/python-pycups 2.0.4-3 [installed]
extra/cups 2:2.4.12-2 [installed]
extra/cups-filters 2.0.1-2 [installed]
extra/cups-pdf 3.0.2-1 [installed]
extra/libcups 2:2.4.12-2 [installed]
extra/libcupsfilters 2.1.1-2 [installed: 2.1.1-2.1]
extra/python-pycups 2.0.4-3 [installed]

flatbush:[ruben]:/var/log/cups$ sudo pacman -Ss printer|grep installed
world/cups-pdf 3.0.2-1 [installed]
world/foomatic-db 3:20240209-1 [installed]
world/foomatic-db-nonfree-ppds 3:20240209-1 [installed]
world/foomatic-db-ppds 3:20240209-1 [installed]
world/gutenprint 5.3.5-1 [installed]
world/smbclient 2:4.22.3-1 [installed]
extra/cups-pdf 3.0.2-1 [installed]
extra/foomatic-db 3:20240209-1 [installed]
extra/foomatic-db-nonfree-ppds 3:20240209-1 [installed]
extra/foomatic-db-ppds 3:20240209-1 [installed]
extra/gutenprint 5.3.5-1 [installed]
extra/smbclient 2:4.22.3-1 [installed]

That allowed me to browse a few dozen Brother printers, but my model was not listed (other than the ones that already failed to work - I did retry it) so I chose something close:



This still didn't work. 

SO I starting the CUPS add printer again, this time through the ipps interface.  I had to manually enter the ip address for the printer through the ipps interace

I actually forgot model ppd file I ended up chosing but that worked.

Quote
Brother
Brother (Idle, Accepting Jobs, Not Shared)
Description:   color laser
Location:   kitchen
Driver:   HL-L3280CDW series - IPP Everywhere (color, 2-sided printing)
Connection:   ipp://10.0.0.45:631/ipp
Defaults:   job-sheets=none, none media=na_letter_8.5x11in sides=one-sided

this works.  It says it is using the HL-L3280CDW series - IPP Everywhere.  I don't think I chose that.  It also warned me that the generic interfaces are being decapted in CUPS!!!  I was like - What?

This is not how it is supposed to work and it his giving me ghost printer  enteries when I print, which is a bit strange:



I don't even know where it is storing this information, let alone how it escaped the CUPS admin interface...
There are so many moving parts to cups now that I am having trouble teasing this to find the issues.  I have no idea where these ghost printers are coming from.  This has to have something to do with the freedesktop code stuffed into cups and the printer stack.

Re: cups printing seems to have "evolved"

Reply #1 –
From my limited understanding, "IPP Everywhere" has a similar goal to what "Postscript Printing" did back in the day.  If your printer system supports "IPP Everywhere", then you can print to anything that understands the standard without having to worry about finding a driver.  I know its been a "thing" for a while now, and I made sure that my latest printer supported the standard.

I did some research on the ".local" domain, and it appears to be a part of the Avahi/mDNS service (provided by the avahi and avahi-openrc packages on my system). I've gotten use to installing avahi when I was running Endeavouros in order to get printer discovery to work and I installed it without thinking when I moved to Artix.

CUPS printing only requires it if you want to use printer discovery or the "*.local" domain. It print just fine without it -- as long as you give it the correct printer address.

You may be getting ghost printers showing up if you have multiple discovery methods running. 

Maybe. I'm have issues keeping track of all the moving parts of a modern linux system. (At least it's not as bad as windows...)

Re: cups printing seems to have "evolved"

Reply #2 –
Quote from: nohbody – on

Maybe. I'm have issues keeping track of all the moving parts of a modern linux system. (At least it's not as bad as windows...)



That is the gold statement for 90% of the problems in modern Linux for which systemd is the pinnacle culpret .