HPLIP doesn't work... can't finish loading printer

[dhenzler]

I have a network IP printer using JetDirect. Use HPLIP to communicate with it from Linux or GhostBSD, but FreeBSD refuses to complete the install. Printer file is there, but program has permanent message NOT FOUND... printer def files were gunzipped, I unzipped the one I neededd with NO results. Same message.

HELP !

 

[shepper]

You are not giving the forum much to go on.
You could be having a network problem: can you ping the printer?

hplip is Hewlett Packard's enhancement to cups and in contrast to Linux, it is not the default print spooler, Have you the started the cups daemon? Does the web configuration interface show up in a browser with the url http://localhost:631? Is the printer discovered the cups configuration interface? If you manually set the IP in the cups interface, for JetDirect it needs to specify port 9100.

I assume your printer is an HP. The ppd files do not need to be gunzip'd. You should be able to select your printer's ppd in the interface.

 

[Oko]

You are not giving the forum much to go on.
You could be having a network problem: can you ping the printer?

hplip is Hewlett Packard's enhancement to cups and in contrast to Linux, it is not the default print spooler, Have you the started the cups daemon? Does the web configuration interface show up in a browser with the url http://localhost:631? Is the printer discovered the cups configuration interface? If you manually set the IP in the cups interface, for JetDirect it needs to specify port 9100.

I assume your printer is an HP. The ppd files do not need to be gunzip'd. You should be able to select your printer's ppd in the interface.

HPLIP is a set of Hewlett Packard open source drivers, small programs which take PostScript stream and convert to whatever proprietary language cheap HP printer speak. Good printers speak PostScript, can print ASCII code out of box and speak LPD (Line Printing Daemon protocol) as well IPP (Internet Printing Protocol). Those not so good speak Printer Command Language (PCL5 or PCL6). And those that speak neither PostScript nor PCL5/6 should not be used IMHO. Printing spooler is a queueing system. Examples include but not limited to LPD, LPDng, CUPS. LPD is the default queuening system on the derivatives of the original BSD UNIX. You could find all this looking at the Wikipedia which begs the advice:"It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt."

 

[dhenzler]

No network problems... the software just denies the existence of the required files despite the fact that they do exist on the machine...

files were gz format... I unzipped it and still same issue...

You've skirted the issue of the blocked file totally... I know a thing or two about printer setup, and this printer works fine on the same machine when running GhostBSD. It's yet another FreeBSD failing...

Load the software... whether or not you have any of the printers... try to install one at random...

you'll see what I mean ... not found always present...

 

[dhenzler]

If I had a network problem... it wouldn't discover the printer...

The file below does exist in the folder shown... however FreeBSD doesn't allow this pkg to open it... (freebsd problem). The identical package works flawlessly in GhostBSD, Linux Mint.

 

[sidetone]

You could find all this looking at the Wikipedia which begs the advice:"It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt."

Wikipedia is not a FreeBSD specific resource. FreeBSD wikis, man pages, BSD Forums and the handbooks are. Not everyone likes Wikipedia, it's not endorsed at FreeBSD, and official works for any subject don't reference Wikipedia.

 

[shepper]

You are using python configuration gui's to setup and troubleshoot your printer software. And if you want to get picky, hplip is not "endorsed" by FreeBSD.

The official printing spooler (print-job queuing/accounting) is LPD and it is described in Chapter 9 of the Handbook. Section 9.6 briefly describes other printing systems and gives a link to hplip. The author of that chapter essentially washes his hands of hplip beyond that link.

 

[sidetone]

Wikipedia is not Unix, Opensource software, FreeBSD, BSD nor Unix specific. So it is not redeemed by a non-endorsement. It shouldn't be anyway.

Case in point, don't expect people to look for information from a community that is run like a Copenhagen zoo.

 

[dhenzler]

Oko, Sidetone & Shepper.... you seem to be more interested in Wikipedia BS than answering my question. Besides if the software wasn't supposed to work under FreeBSD why is it in the /usr/ports collection ? Try that one on! I get tired of you FreeBSD folks defending the fact that it's not very good for all of the software they say it will work with. Another area is CD/DVD burners... not being able to find the Optical Drive. What absolute BS!

Remember GhostBSD runs HPLIP just fine... they draw their files from the same roots. This is so reminiscent of Solaris back in 1998. Couldn't get it working unless you bought just the right video card... screens, mice, keyboard all problematic Xorg issues. I worked through it and used it up until they published wrong information,and deleted my comment on how it was incorrect, and put out the correction. Solaris is in my past now... and the Unix "CLUB" attitude of "If you haven't been working with it forever" forget asking for help is such BS.

So... do you have any answers for the question posed, or are you going to continue with the Wikipedia BS?

 

[dhenzler]

You are using python configuration gui's to setup and troubleshoot your printer software. And if you want to get picky, hplip is not "endorsed" by FreeBSD.

The official printing spooler (print-job queuing/accounting) is LPD and it is described in Chapter 9 of the Handbook. Section 9.6 briefly describes other printing systems and gives a link to hplip. The author of that chapter essentially washes his hands of hplip beyond that link.

 

[dhenzler]

Not using HPLIP to troubleshoot anything sir... simply using a GUI tool that that provides good interface for determining toner status, print status, print cancellation, and more... if you don't understand the software don't criticize it or me for wanting to use it.

 

[dhenzler]

shepper said:
"You are using python configuration gui's to setup and troubleshoot your printer software. And if you want to get picky, hplip is not "endorsed" by FreeBSD.

The official printing spooler (print-job queuing/accounting) is LPD and it is described in Chapter 9 of the Handbook. Section 9.6 briefly describes other printing systems and gives a link to hplip. The author of that chapter essentially washes his hands of hplip beyond that link."

irrelevant ! answer my question or please remain silent. If you can't answer the question don't change the topic.

 

[sidetone]

dhenzler
I'm not the one who expected you to reference that resource. My only argument here is don't have an expectation for people to use that.

I just restated a response that was self explanatory in response to semantics.

 

[bookwormep]

Two cents of advice. Printers can be tedious and finicky...I know because....
Anyway, try and be patient with troubleshooting.

My advice is regroup your focus on reading the man pages and come back with refreshed information and understanding (like hplip). Finally, look at how GhostBSD
sets up the configuration files (you said that was working), then, try and replicate that on your FreeBSD boxen.

 

[shepper]

Remember GhostBSD runs HPLIP just fine... they draw their files from the same roots.

GhostBSD is a desktop oriented system that chose CUPS as the default spooler. I do not run GhostBSD but I would bet that if you review GhostBSD's /etc/rc.conf, cups is enabled. That is not the case in FreeBSD. Running HPLIP on FreeBSD is more that just installing it, you have to start the cups daemon. As far as CD/DVD burning, the link I provided tells you to enable user access, you just need to read it. And while you are at it you could read the handbook link to the cups spooler. HPLIP utilizes the cups spooler, it does not have it's own.

 

[Oko]

Oko, Sidetone & Shepper.... you seem to be more interested in Wikipedia BS than answering my question.
...
So... do you have any answers for the question posed, or are you going to continue with the Wikipedia BS?

Listen kid. My kids will be heading to college in few years. I am done changing diapers and babysitting. I have no interest in helping somebody who showed 0 effort based on this and your question about K3b to read the documentation and make an attempt to understand how FreeBSD works. Go get yourself pre-configured computer from Walmart and enjoy the life. The only reason I got involved into this thread was that somebody was posting incorrect information.

P.S. You don't understand how the open source works. There is nothing that turns people off more than telling them to do something for you while showing 0 effort, and doing that with the attitude in rude tone.

 

[shepper]

The only reason I got involved into this thread was that somebody was posting incorrect information.

From the standpoint of not wanting to disseminate incorrect information, what was incorrect?

The original posters screenshot shows him attempting to select a postscript ppd in an HPLIP configuration gui. HPLIP has cups-filters as a runtime dependency https://www.freshports.org/print/hplip/ which in turn has print/cups as a runtime dependency.

 

[scottro]

This isn't as bad as some forums, but in general, if you come on here criticizing FreeBSD there will be those who jump on that. Tribalism is alive and well, look at US politics. (Or other countries, but I live in the US, so that's the one I know best).

Quick answer--try using the CLI for hplip rather than the GUI, it often, in my experience, works better.

Long answer.
Even with Linux, which, at least in many distributions makes the desktop easier to do than FreeBSD, I would see people having trouble with the hplip GUI tool, but succeeding if they used the command line one. That might have only been with Fedora, and I want to say that I think they had a broken hplip, even the CLI version, and you were better off building it from source, but I may be misremembering. Anyway, you could file a bug, pointing out that it's working on GhostBSD, but they will ask you for further information, and you have to decide for yourself if you want to spend the time.

If you want to use FreeBSD as your desktop, you will often have to do more work than you would with Linux. If your job is FreeBSD based, or you're eager to learn it, and want to use it as much as possible, you can certainly do it, but there will be the odd annoyances, such as the one you're having now.


Personally, I use CUPS for printing, though I did use the lpr method just to see if I could do it. wblock@ has a nice page on getting it to work at http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/lpdprinting.html. CUPS might Just Work(TM) for you, but if you definitely want to use hplip, then I go back to my quick answer, try the CLI version and see if it works. Afterwards, the usual suspects, printer pingable, etc.

 

[Oko]

From the standpoint of not wanting to disseminate incorrect information, what was incorrect?

Your English appears to be as bad as mine. On the second read I realized that you were referring to CUPS as non-default print spooler rather than HPLIP. Originally I read that you were referring to HPLIP as a printing spooler. Either way you can use printing drivers from HPLIP print/hpijs with LPD so unless you want to use one of those all-in-one HP devices you don't need to use CUPS. Unfortunately the last time I used HPLIP with all-in-one devices CUPS was dependency not an option.

 

[dhenzler]

Listen kid. My kids will be heading to college in few years. I am done changing diapers and babysitting. I have no interest in helping somebody who showed 0 effort based on this and your question about K3b to read the documentation and make an attempt to understand how FreeBSD works. Go get yourself pre-configured computer from Walmart and enjoy the life. The only reason I got involved into this thread was that somebody was posting incorrect information.

P.S. You don't understand how the open source work. There is nothing that turns people off more than telling them to do something for you while showing 0 effort, and doing that with the attitude in rude tone.

Excuse Me... I thought this was a FORUM to HELP users... NOT CRITICIZE THEM for their lack of understanding. People like you... who respond to questions with aloof criticism are annoying. By the way... I didn't TELL anyone to help me... only asked! Let me reiterate... If you can't answer the question in a helpful manner, but choose to be critical of someone who overlooked or missed something... BUZZ OFF!

 

[Ryan Root]

Can you take a look at the page I'll put at the bottom and after reading it note at the bottom the "Binary plug-in information" and the specific mention that some of the code cannot be open source. There is also a page to a list of printers that require accepting the license agreement that cannot be binary and on that page a mention also that the page is outdated. If your printer is one that requires accepting a non open source license then that may be part of your problem. Some of the other operating systems you mentioned may just be making the assumption that they can safely ignore the fact that the users should be being prompted with a license agreement that isn't open source. When you install these drivers on those other operating systems you mentioned do they prompt you with anything that indicates you have to agree to a type of license agreement? Maybe your printer isn't one that requires using non open source code but it nonetheless may be part of the problem you are having with FreeBSD. It's even possible FreeBSD has asked for clarity and an updated list from HP of which printers require the agreement to a non open source license and hasn't got it, I'm not sure. I personally don't like operating systems that would hide from me that I should have been prompted to read an agreement and had the option to decline it or not and just assume I will accept it because its just another ignore the text and click OK prompt.

https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imaging-and-printing/IsHPLIPLicensed.html

 

[sidetone]

scottro 's post is correct. I remember that I had to set it up as root to get HPLIP to work. I either used the Command Line Interface (CLI) as root, or I logged into the root desktop account (which is not recommended) to make it work. After that, I was able to use it without using root to start it up.

Another problem I had with HPLIP, which doesn't appear to be your problem is, I had to remove all derivatives of ghostscript's drivers, set the options right, then compile it so that the right drivers would be included. That was trial and error, until the right port with the correct set of drivers installed.

 

[sidetone]

I was wondering, what the settings were so that HPLIP/CUPS/ULPT/driver can access configuration without needing to perform set up as root.

I was thinking in terms of /etc/group, and setting devfs_system_ruleset="localrules" in /etc/rc.conf to use /etc/devfs.rules, devfs.rules(5).

I haven't tried this when I did have my printer set up, and I'm not setting up my printer now.

 

[scottro]

I forgot to mention that, but I'm almost sure that I did have to use sudo or su to use CLI. Thanks for reminding me.

 

[jssd]

Having the exact same problem as dhenzler, over 2 years later in 12.1-STABLE: The GUI will not accept my PPD file selection. Anyone have any luck?