Printing from WinXP -> Puppy - Strange Problem [SOLVED]

Problems and successes with specific brands/models of printers
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p310don
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Printing from WinXP -> Puppy - Strange Problem [SOLVED]

#1 Post by p310don »

I have a situation at work that is causing me grief.

I have a Samsung printer that has worked great for a few years now. It connects wirelessly to WinXP and Puppy. One of the PCs in the network runs WinXP SP1 (or original XP). The Windows driver for the Samsung printer requires SP3 as a minimum, so to use the printer from that PC I have been printing from it to a Puppy (Carolina VG with CUPS 1.4.3) shared version of the same printer. Works pretty much flawlessly. Until now.

We upgraded our internet, which included an ISP supplied modem. The old modem provided IP addresses in the 192.168.1.xxx range. The new modem uses the 10.1.1.xxx range. That shouldn't be a problem, just re-define the IP addresses and all should be good. That works perfectly for the CUPS-PDF printer, a Brother printer on the Puppy machine, but the Samsung printer just comes up with "Windows cannot connect to that printer" or something like that.

I have used the exact same method on 2 other physical XP machines and one Virtual machine without error. The machine that is causing me grief is basically identical to the others, and like I said connects to 2 other Puppy based printers, but refuses the Samsung.

Any suggestions why?

The method I am using is (from one of rcrsn51's many great tutorials):

On XP - Printer Scanner - Add new printer - Network Printer - Type in printer address: http://puppyserver:631/printers/samsung or http://10.1.1.124:621/printers/samsung and that is where it stops.

This exact method works find elsewhere, and on the same machine for the other printers. I am at a loss how this problem is happening. Any suggestions?
Last edited by p310don on Thu 19 Jul 2018, 11:22, edited 1 time in total.

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mikeb
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#2 Post by mikeb »

from distant memory the actual port used to connect to the printer is buried in the settings and it would seem as if its still tied to the old address.
I only recall this because to set up in one instance I had to add a printer then chase this buried option to select port to make it actually work...ie specifying the correct port could not be done from the standard setup....sorry not on windows this second so thats all a bit vague but when I get chance I will get more specific info.

There's always the registry...ie search for the old address and you may find the key to edit.

mike

p310don
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#3 Post by p310don »

Frustration continues. I thought, bugger it, I'll install a "new" version of the Samsung printer, new name Samsnug. Still doesn't print. grrrr

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mikeb
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#4 Post by mikeb »

Ok more specific....

Right click on the printer in Printers and Faxes
Properties....
Open the 'Ports' tab
See if it makes sense and check what is in the 'Configure Port...' of the chosen Port.

That's where I meant...if you have followed this path already then apologies.

I have a network printer but used to share the old one via cups ipp interface so pretty much as you are.

mike

p310don
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#5 Post by p310don »

See if it makes sense and check what is in the 'Configure Port...' of the chosen Port.
Unfortunately I cannot even get that far.

My complete process is:

Starting with making sure the printer is installed and shared in CUPS (it is)
Go to printers and faxes in WinXP
Right Click, go to Add Printer
Next
Select "A network printer, or a printer attached to another computer"
Select "Connect to a printer on the internet or on a home or office network"
Type into the URL http://puppyserver:631/printers/samsung
At that point it comes up with "Windows cannot connect to the printer. Operation cannot be completed."

So from there I cannot check the configure port settings as the printer won't even add.

I did discover that the port gets added into the list for other printers, but is useless as it seems it is open ended, going nowhere.

I might try adding the other printer again, and then redirecting it to the samsung port...

p310don
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#6 Post by p310don »

I might try adding the other printer again, and then redirecting it to the samsung port...
Nope, that didn't work. I can't even change the ports on the printer to go to the Samsung.

p310don
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#7 Post by p310don »

Hmmmm, I may have figured out a problem...

I went to another computer that will add the printer with no problems. This computer is identical, except that it has been updated to run XP SP3, whilst the problematic PC runs SP1.

On the working XP PC, following the same process it automatically uses the Samsung driver. The Samsung driver does not work in SP1, only SP3 (maybe SP2). It doesn't matter as I use the HP Color Laserjet PS driver and CUPS does the magic to make that work.

Note, the Samsung windows driver is installed on the SP3 PC.

I don't know how the windows Samsung printer driver is installing itself on the Linux share, but I suspect that may be the issue. Noting that the Windows Samsung is shared on this network (but doesn't work on the SP1 machine - hence this method, which worked before the new modem).

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rcrsn51
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#8 Post by rcrsn51 »

Is this a firewall situation on either the XP SP1 machine for the host Linux machine?

p310don
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#9 Post by p310don »

Is this a firewall situation on either the XP SP1 machine for the host Linux machine?
No. No firewall.

I would assume if it was a firewall issue, no printer would work from XP SP1. But there isn't a firewall anyway.

This is very specific to this printer on this machine it seems. Two other linux shared printers work on the XP SP1 machine.

And that printer works on every other XP machine in the place. Just, frustratingly, this particular machine is the one we do the most printing from, and that printer is the best printer for the job.

We can use the workaround of printing to the CUPS-PDF and then printing the PDF from the Puppy computer. I can manage that no problems, but staff seem to struggle with that extra step.. (oh no, I can't use linux, I only use windows... )

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rcrsn51
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#10 Post by rcrsn51 »

p310don wrote:It doesn't matter as I use the HP Color Laserjet PS driver and CUPS does the magic to make that work.
I am confused by that statement. If you don't need to use the Windows driver on the SP1 machine, then why not just connect directly to the printer?

Why bother going through the CUPS middle-man?

If you scan your network with PeasyPort for port 9100 , can you see the printer?

Also:
Start>Control Panel>Printers and Faxes>rightclick your printer and
click Properties>Ports tab. You now should see all the ports listed.
Highlight the port you no longer want and click the Delete Port button.
IIRC, XP had two ways to connect a remote printer: as a "network" printer or as a "local printer with a port". In the latter case, you would specify the printer's IP address and port 9100.

[Edit] Or is this a situation where XP sends a raw Postscript job to the CUPS printer and it supplies the Linux Samsung driver?

p310don
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#11 Post by p310don »

p310don wrote:
It doesn't matter as I use the HP Color Laserjet PS driver and CUPS does the magic to make that work.
rcrsn51 wrote:
I am confused by that statement. If you don't need to use the Windows driver on the SP1 machine, then why not just connect directly to the printer?
I do not need to use the Windows driver as it works through CUPS. It does not work directly.
Why bother going through the CUPS middle-man?
That's the only way it works. It did previously work. I can't remember what I did to make it work.
If you scan your network with PeasyPort for port 9100 , can you see the printer?
Yes. It took two attempts to show up.
Also:
Quote:
Start>Control Panel>Printers and Faxes>rightclick your printer and
click Properties>Ports tab. You now should see all the ports listed.
Highlight the port you no longer want and click the Delete Port button.


IIRC, XP had two ways to connect a remote printer: as a "network" printer or as a "local printer with a port". In the latter case, you would specify the printer's IP address and port 9100.
I cannot use the printer's IP address as direct connection doesn't work due to the SP1 limitation, only connection via CUPS works.
[Edit] Or is this a situation where XP sends a raw Postscript job to the CUPS printer and it supplies the Linux Samsung driver?
Exactly

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rcrsn51
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#12 Post by rcrsn51 »

My only other suggestion would be to set up another Puppy machine with the same CUPS setup, then see if the SP1 machine can attach to it.

p310don
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#13 Post by p310don »

My only other suggestion would be to set up another Puppy machine with the same CUPS setup, then see if the SP1 machine can attach to it.
Gave me a brainwave. There is a raspberry PI on the network that prints to the Puppy shared CUPS printers. The SP1 box easily connects to the RasPI share of the Samsung printer. Doesn't print though. GRRRRR

I can't make changes to the RasPI as I don't know the password, but I'll persevere perhaps in that route and see if it plays.

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rcrsn51
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#14 Post by rcrsn51 »

[SOLVED]
How ??????

p310don
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#15 Post by p310don »

Turns out the default password for raspbian is raspberry, username pi. Didn't help my problem.

I had a visit from jamesbond who graciously offered to come and have a look at it for me. His investigations led to the conclusion that there is a current bug in printer sharing on a Raspberry PI, so that solution was never going to work.

Through James' and my discussion, work and frustration that there is nothing wrong, except it just didn't work, we came to the idea / realisation that if the XP SP1 computer could see the other CUPS printers shared, we could trick it into connecting to the seen printer, and then changing the seen printer into the unseen Samsung printer.

The process used:

Create new printer in CUPS, called it BrotherSam - it is really a Brother printer which I know connects with XP

Connected to BrotherSam on XP SP1 computer, made sure it worked

Went back to CUPS and edited BrotherSam to be the Samsung printer by redirecting it to the Samsung's IP address and changing to the appropriate Linux driver

Then upon checking in XP SP1 it worked like there was never a problem!!!

I am so happy to have this working, it has been bugging me for over a week. Thank you to mikeb from the beginning of this thread for your input. Your advice seems to have been correct, except in this case for some unknown reason it wasn't. Thanks to rcrsn51 for always helping with printing stuff, and giving me the idea to use another Puppy (or in my convenient cast PI - although again that didn't work for some reason). And a extra big thanks to jamesbond for taking the time to come and help me, talk it over, spitball ideas and ultimately help with the working solution.

I still don't know what the cause of the problem was (but have some ideas) but I think it's best to let sleeping dogs lie :)

Thanks all for the help

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rcrsn51
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#16 Post by rcrsn51 »

Nice work.

Regarding the Raspberry Pi: What OS is it running?

In mainstream Linux, the old methods of CUPS printer sharing as used by Puppy don't work any more. You need additional infrastructure.

This is discussed in How to Install your Printer in Puppy. The recommendation is to share a printer via the p910nd server instead of CUPS.

Unfortunately, that won't help you. With p910nd, the client still has to supply the driver, which the SP1 box cannot do.

In any case, using CUPS to share a printer that is already shareable by virtue of being a standalone networked printer is a rather convoluted process!

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#17 Post by mikeb »

Glad you have a solution... 'tricking it' seems the way with printers and windows sometimes and your fix sounds all too familiar.
I once had to get a driver from xerox's japanese site as all english versions had been removed....microsoft don't like supporting older systems lol..
(or HP)..but fortunately a foreign language protects us free spirits at times :)

Sorry if my input was fragmented but I don't get notifications here and the weather was good for sneaking away on a boat.

mike

p310don
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#18 Post by p310don »

The PI is running Raspbian, I'm pretty sure from April this year.

In mainstream Linux, the old methods of CUPS printer sharing as used by Puppy don't work any more. You need additional infrastructure.
I've come up against that, even in newer Pups with later / latest CUPS. I really like the setup that I have in that it "just works" - except when it doesn't as per this thread.

I've read the p910nd thread thinking it might have been my solution, but that windows driver thing is the stickler.
In any case, using CUPS to share a printer that is already shareable by virtue of being a standalone networked printer is a rather convoluted process!
No doubt, but has the advantage of being able to use the driver that comes with Windows (HP Color Laserjet PS) so as to avoid bloat & resource overhead that some windows drivers have.
In that vein, there are two XP computers that commonly use this printer. They are identical hardware wise (P4, 2.8ghz, 512mb ram), one has SP3 and the other is SP1. The SP3 machine prints via the Windows driver. It loads a preview screen first, and then prints to the printer - a process that takes perhaps 30 seconds at best. The SP1 machine prints via CUPS (now) and takes maybe 10 seconds to do the job.

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#19 Post by rcrsn51 »

I suspect that mikeb is correct about the SP1 box. Buried somewhere in its registry is information about the Samsung printer that ties it to the old IP, which it keeps wanting to use.

By using a different name for the Samsung printer, you were able to bypass this problem.
Last edited by rcrsn51 on Thu 19 Jul 2018, 13:50, edited 1 time in total.

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#20 Post by rcrsn51 »

I was curious about how your situation works with the newer CUPS.

I have a Stretch-live setup with CUPS 2.2.1. Its installed printer is a stand-alone HP Laserjet via the socket:// protocol over Ethernet.

I made this printer shareable with the usual two CUPS settings.

I then booted an old XP netbook. Using the printer wizard, I installed a networked printer like you did:

Code: Select all

http://192.168.2.10:631/printers/HP_Laserjet_Pro..."
I selected "HP Color Laserjet PS" for the driver and printed a test page.

But it failed, and CUPS reported "can't detect file type".

So I tried a different driver in XP - "IBM Network printer 24 PS". This one worked!

So the system still works in new CUPS, but you need a more compatible Postscript driver in the XP box.

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