Printing bugs and annoyances in 3.0.25b

Tue Jul 24 15:41:28 GMT 2007

Hi,

today I tried to support a customer via remote login who had upgraded
to 3.0.25 in order to avoid a few 3.0.23 bugs (the "old" Samba version
running there currently).

Unfortunately, I can't give all the details, because after a rather
short testing, it was decided to revert the upgrade (and I didn't have
the time to note down all the details)

Here are the problems encountered:
==================================

Some printers which contained a non-empty string in the "Description:"
and/or the "Location:" fields (CUPS web interface, or as shown in output
of "lpstat -l -p printername") did not show up in the Windows Network
Neighbourhood under their CUPS names, but re-named, and their name
now was the first word of their "Description" string as given on the
CUPS side. It was not possible for Windows clients to use these printers.
There also appeared .tdb files with such names, like
"/var/lib/samba/printing/testlogistric.tdb"

Example:
--------

[root at prod cups]# lpstat -l -p SCHP068
printer SCHP068 is idle.  enabled since Tue 24 Jul 2007 03:55:30 PM CEST
        Form mounted:
        Content types: any
        Printer types: unknown
        Description: testlogistric-comment
        Alerts: none
        Location: some string
        [....]

[root at prod samba]# rpcclient -U "domainname\kp_druckadmin%dummypasswd" localhost -c enumprinters|grep testlogistric
        name:[\\schlxs043\testlogistric-comment]
        description:[\\schlxs043\testlogistric-comment,,SCHP068]

[root at prod samba]# l /var/lib/samba/printing/testlogistric-comment.tdb
-rw-------  1 root root 24576 Jul 24 14:45 /var/lib/samba/printing/testlogistric-comment.tdb

Deleting the ${description-word}.tdb files did not help much; the
same .tdb file was re-created after a short while.

I was able to use "rpcclient setprintername testlogistric-comment
SCHP068" to set the name back to the original CUPS name, but printing
still didn't work then.

We tried to delete all comments from the printer, but this led to the
printer to become invisible in the network neighbourhood.

As said above, this happened only to *some* printers (about 10 out of
90). Some printers which *also* contained comments, worked normally.
As we could not find and fix the problem within a few hours, the up-
grade was reverted.

Something is really not smelling too good here...   :->>

We'd be very grateful if someone could look deeper into the code that
maps the CUPS "Description" and "Location" fields to the fields that
are displayed in the Windows GUI.

Sorry to not being able to provide more info (like debug 10 logs) at the
moment, but reverting to a working print server (with the previous bugs)
was more important to the customer right now.

Here is a major annoyance with 3.0.25b:
=======================================

 * in 3.0.23 the printjob name passed to CUPS by Samba had as a "human
   readable" part the original job title. Examples from CUPS' error_log
   (I deleted a few lines which would leak too much private info about
   what was printed). Running "grep 'argv\[3\]' /var/log/cups/error_log":

D [24/Jul/2007:09:53:35 +0200] [Job 146076] argv[3]="smbprn.00002701 outbind://4-000000004F2FDAFAF71974419ADE4D72E9782E9D0700919377E"
D [24/Jul/2007:09:53:38 +0200] [Job 146077] argv[3]="smbprn.00007209 Microsoft Word - Zeitaufwand für Projekt x212 und z204 mFM 24JUL07.doc"
D [24/Jul/2007:09:53:56 +0200] [Job 146078] argv[3]="smbprn.00007192 fiche IDO dt (2).xls"
D [24/Jul/2007:09:54:00 +0200] [Job 146083] argv[3]="smbprn.00003910 C:\WINDOWS\Temp\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\54H49L3R\CAUNGX8H.pdf"
D [24/Jul/2007:09:54:25 +0200] [Job 146084] argv[3]="smbprn.00001841 14306A.xls"
D [24/Jul/2007:09:54:53 +0200] [Job 146087] argv[3]="smbprn.00000515 Projektmappe LW Ablagefach x220.xls"
D [24/Jul/2007:09:57:41 +0200] [Job 146109] argv[3]="smbprn.00001471 http://www.immobilienscout24.de/de/umbau/innenausbau/boeden/bod"
D [24/Jul/2007:09:58:42 +0200] [Job 146111] argv[3]="smbprn.00000627 Microsoft Word - Bestätigung_Fanka.doc"
D [24/Jul/2007:09:59:15 +0200] [Job 146110] argv[3]="smbprn.00001472 http://www.wer-weiss-was.de/theme93/article2384966.html"
D [24/Jul/2007:10:02:39 +0200] [Job 135134] argv[3]="smbprn.00000383 Ganzseitiger Fotoausdruck"
D [24/Jul/2007:10:03:06 +0200] [Job 143910] argv[3]="smbprn.00000507 outbind://2-0000000090B0AA6CBD10C945B010E0388D48C6E90700919377E"

  These jobnames were visible in the Windows GUI too as well as in the
  CUPS web interface, and used by users to identify their own jobs (for
  cancelling and reprint, etc.). This is no longer possible, because of
  the fact that....

 * in 3.0.25 the printjob names passed to CUPS are pure "gobble-di-gook":

D [24/Jul/2007:10:03:26 +0200] [Job 146113] argv[3]="smbprn.00004747.vpFinI"
D [24/Jul/2007:10:03:28 +0200] [Job 146114] argv[3]="smbprn.00004044.r1DBY3"
D [24/Jul/2007:10:03:31 +0200] [Job 146115] argv[3]="smbprn.00007197.MZnXKq"
D [24/Jul/2007:10:03:34 +0200] [Job 146116] argv[3]="smbprn.00002748.svqof8"
D [24/Jul/2007:10:03:37 +0200] [Job 146117] argv[3]="smbprn.00004748.rG4dQH"
D [24/Jul/2007:10:03:44 +0200] [Job 146118] argv[3]="smbprn.00000123.DrsOSM"
D [24/Jul/2007:10:04:11 +0200] [Job 146119] argv[3]="smbprn.00001141.h3p22X"
D [24/Jul/2007:10:04:20 +0200] [Job 146120] argv[3]="smbprn.00004045.E2IOrM"

   (I admit it looks cleaner and shorter in the log file, but the customer's
   users were not at all happy about it...).

-- 
Kurt Pfeifle
System & Network Printing Consultant ---- Linux/Unix/Windows/Samba/CUPS
Infotec Deutschland GmbH  .....................  Hedelfinger Strasse 58
A RICOH Company  ...........................  D-70327 Stuttgart/Germany 
---
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