LBP2900b, works on linux but not windows

[ansingh]

So I have this printer and thought I'd try sharing it on my home network using my spare pi. I was able to use captdriver to setup cups on my pi and queuing and test printing works. I've been able to get prints from my linux machine with decent consistency (libreoffice, krita, etc all work).

However, I haven't had any luck on windows. As soon as I issue a testprint - while the job gets queued fine, it fails to move past "sending data to printer". Restarting the printer and resuming the job doesn't help either. The only way it works again is if I cancel this job, restart the printer and post a job from linux.

I suspect there's some feature or something missing that jobs from windows relies on - since I'm not familiar with printers, cups, in general ... I want to rule out the obvious culprits before I dig in too deep. Where do you think I should start with the issue ? Is there any way I can compare the raw instructions in the job posted on cups to see the difference that causes this failure.

PS : I'm open to help in further reverse engineering of the protocol, since I understand you don't have this printer anymore.

[agalakhov]

The LBPxxx series is the only known printer that uses bidirectional communication during printing. All other pwinters (even GDI ones) just expect pages sent in some special format. The LBPxxx series sends the data in small chunks and expects a reply from the server after each chunk.

In order to use such a printer over the network in CUPS, one has to make sure the whole processing is done on the machine that acts as a print server, and no bidirectional protocol is forwarded through the network. The best way is probably to set up print server to simulate a PostScript or PDF printer in software, so that the CAPT protocol won't go through the network at all. There is no official support for bidirectional network communication in CUPS, and it is unlikely to work properly.

[ansingh]

I did install the cups server on pi itself, so all the printing happens on the pi [Printer, CUPS server, driver are on the same machine]. The other linux machine is a desktop that posts print jobs on to the pi (unaware of capt) .... and this does result in successful prints.

I think I understand the problem why it didn't work with windows - the driver I was using to connect to cups was the one that came with canon, and maybe expected CAPT communication(?) . Using microsoft ps driver I was able to get some rasters working, while text still doesn't work .... I think I just need the right driver on windows. [Like i said before, I'm extremely new to all of this]

I'm almost at the stage where I'm able to print pages both using captdriver and the canon supplied driver. I'll try to spend some time in the next few weeks to see if I can reasonably make a comparison in the communication exchange in both the cases.

[KP1533TM2]

Have you tried configuring Windows to use Internet Printing Protocol? That's how my LBP3000 worked with both Windows (7) and various Linux distros for a good couple of years.

[ansingh]

I am using Internet Printing Protocol, windows still asks for a driver while adding a printer ... it's this driver that I seem to have problems with.

Canon supplied driver can't be used here and the ps generated from the microsoft ps driver has some issues with cups. This has nothing to do with captdriver now, because cups-pdf virtual printer also behaves similarly. I'll try updating cups and see if that helps.

A recent post with similar issue : http://www.ubuntu-forum.de/artikel/67531/druck-aus-chrome-okay-libreoffice-nur-erster-buchstabe.html