Can't Print
A couple of weeks ago I installed MEPIS 6.5-64. Since then I've been unable to get the printer system to work.
If I click on the KDE menu> print system> add printer, the dialog box opens but once I get to the point of selecting my printer (HP color laser 2600n) and selecting color and printing a test page when I hit next the program crashes and I can do nothing but close.
If I try to access the system configuration> peripherals> printer the program crashes and leaves me no option but to close the window.
I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling CUPS. I've tried doing an apt get install kde. I finally did a complete reinstall but nothing works.
This printer worked fine under MEPIS 6.0 so I don't think it is something wrong with the printer. Still I've tried shutting down, disconnecting the printer ant rebooting then shutting down again and reconnecting my printer and rebooting but nothing works. I even tried running MEPIS 6.5-32 from the live CD and had exactly the same results with the print system.
Am I simply not going to be able to run MEPIS6.5?
Thanks for any help you can offer.
You could try a different driver
I installed mepis onto my brother in laws laptop a wee while back and when his work got a new high end color laser printer, the techs were installing the HP 5l driver onto everybodys windows machines and all they could get was black printout, no color after 5-10 minutes on each machine
When they came to his laptop, their windows disk was totally useless and they couldn't get it to work in Linux, no surprises there, but when they asked him how to install printers, it took less than 90 seconds to complete, he'd never done it before, and he was the only person in the building that had color printing with their big flash do absolutly everything color laser printer. Sorry, I can't tell you what model it is, but the moral of this story is....
HP have always had a reference driver for their products. For deskjets, it was the 540, maybe for laserjets, it's the 5L? May be worth a try.
Personally, I use turboprint because it allows me to choose what model of printer I want to use without having to jump through hoops to get them working. So far, I have had no problems with printing since Mepis 3.43, but I am using a proprietary driver.
Mike P
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Break M$'s shackles from your feet and free yourself with Mepis
Look for a second printer choice
A quirk with some HP printers is that they show up more than once.
You'll need to select the printer name with the underscore characters in it. I'd check to see if your HP is showing up more than once (and make sure to scroll down to see).
See this thread for screen prints and details:
http://www.mepis.org/node/11444
Jim C.
Second Printer Choice results
You'll need to select the printer name with the underscore characters in it. I'd check to see if your HP is showing up more than once (and make sure to scroll down to see).
See this thread for screen prints and details:
http://www.mepis.org/node/11444
Jim C.
Hi Jim, and thanks for your input.
My printer does appear 4 times I hadn't tried the one under others. So following your instructions, I just did. Once again once I got to the print test screen and made my settings and printed a test page which printed fine. However once I hit the button at the bottom of the Printer Test screen the program froze and I could do nothing but terminate.
Let me also point out that the only way I can get even this far is by clicking on the KDE/MEPIS menu, and selecting print system. I can't even open the printer section under peripherals in the System Configuration Settings program. If I try that nothing happens for several MINUTES then a frozen window opens which sometimes can only be closed by logging out and other times can be closed by selecting terminate in the window not responding dialog.
LTR
Registered Linux user #280295
Associate member #4758 of The Free Software Foundation
HPLIP Toolbox see it?
Does the HPLIP Printer Toolbox see the printer after you add it using one of the choices under "other", as long as you do not use the button at the bottom that causes it to lock up?
That usually means it sees it OK (HPLIP Printer Toolbox recognizes it). I'd try rebooting after adding it and see if HPLIP Toolbox sees it. If so, I'd try printing from an application instead of using the test button.
You may want to play with the settings under the HPLIP toolbox to see if something there is causing it.
Jim C.
HPLIP Toolbox results
That usually means it sees it OK (HPLIP Printer Toolbox recognizes it). I'd try rebooting after adding it and see if HPLIP Toolbox sees it. If so, I'd try printing from an application instead of using the test button.
You may want to play with the settings under the HPLIP toolbox to see if something there is causing it.
Jim C.
First of all I can never get to the point of having installed a new printer because at the same point (the printer test screen) which comes right after the model selection screen, in the process the program/wizard freezes.
I did try running it again up to the point where it freezes just now and then checking the HPLIP Toolbox. As before it says no HP printer found. I've also repeatedly tried to print from apps such as OO.o and Kmail, but my printer does not appear so I cannot possibly select it for printing.
We have a small lan set up with two computers and two, well now one, printer connected to it. I am also unable to print to the network connected printer. I had previously (with MEPIS 6.0) been able to print to the other, networked, printer just fine.
LTR
Registered Linux user #280295
Associate member #4758 of The Free Software Foundation
You could try an older HPLIP
You could force the version of HPLIP found in Synaptic to an older version and see if that works. Just use the ubuntu package versus the mepis package for it under versions.
Warren upgraded 6.5 to the latest HPLIP and printer drivers. So, perhaps the newer version has a quirk of some type with your particular printer model.
That doesn't seem likely. But, stranger things have been known to happen. The new version in 6.5 works fine with my HP PSC-1410 (multi-function type printer).
Jim C.
HPLIP and printer configuration
Warren upgraded 6.5 to the latest HPLIP and printer drivers. So, perhaps the newer version has a quirk of some type with your particular printer model.
That doesn't seem likely. But, stranger things have been known to happen. The new version in 6.5 works fine with my HP PSC-1410 (multi-function type printer).
Jim C.
You may well be right about a possible quirk regarding my particular printer. However, I can't even get the printer section of peripherals in the System Configuration(Settings) program to even open either from the live CD or from the installed version of MEPIS 6.5. All attempts at opening the printer section of the peripherals section of the system configuration program result in a program freeze whether or not I have my printer connected to my system. I don't see how that could possibly be connected to my printer. Do you?
BTW I've tried both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions of the live CD and get the same results. I haven't tried installing the 32 bit version because I have the same problems with the printer configuration program on the live CD so I have no reasson to believe it will work when installed.
LTR
Registered Linux user #280295
Associate member #4758 of The Free Software Foundation
Re. Printing broken in MEPIS 6.5
The successful install of the Lexmark on MEPIS 6.0 was using the KDE Add Printer. Following the same procedure in MEPIS 6.5 does NOT work.
The fact that neither printer will work under 6.5 whereas both worked under 6.0 suggests that it is not a problem with HPLIP or specific printer drivers but some fault in the underlying MEPIS 6.5 operating system. I am using MEPIS 32 bit.
Any ideas ?????
Hi richardw2.
You might want to check out this thread on MEPISLovers
http://www.mepislovers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6263
It was started by me about this problem. There was much information exchanged but in the end I don't really know what solved my printing problem.
At one point I opened the system configuration (Settings)> peripherals and worked on some other periphal (sorry I don't know what it was) when I finished, instead of closing the program I decided to try configure printers one more time and that time it worked. I am now printing with no problems including networked printers.
I doubt that this will be of much help. but who knows?
LTR
Registered Linux user #280295
Associate member #4758 of The Free Software Foundation