[Solved] Libreoffice printing to Cups shared printer over network

QuimaxW · 2018-02-11 08:57:17

I've been using much Google-fu, searching the Arch wiki & these forums on and off for about 3 weeks now, but have yet to find a solution.

The issue: Libreoffice (5.x & 6.0 now) will not print to the printer I've shared via Cups on my Arch linux server. It's ONLY Libreoffice any other application that I try to print from (mostly GTK as I run Cinnamon) works fine. In the wiki, it mentions installing a2ps package, but nothing changed.

I've seen nothing in the cups logs (assuming I'm looking in the right place) and am not sure that Libreoffice actually logs anything. I'm running a cups local server on my notebook and with the USB printer plugged directly into my notebook, it works fine. It also works fine on the server. Cups is using Avahi to auto-detect the printer. This works, Libreoffice actually does see the printer now (I don't recall when that started...), but when the printer is selected to print to I get an error that says "Unable to start the printer."
For now, I export everything as a PDF and use evince to print it.

Questions...where can I start to troubleshoot this? I haven't been able to find any proper logs on my system for either program, though I suspect they should exist somewhere for at least cups. I doubt anyone has a direct solution of "click this button and it'll work!" but I'm hoping that someone might know where I can troubleshoot it.

Current versions: cups - 2.2.6 & libreoffice-fresh 6.0.1

Last edited by QuimaxW (2018-02-24 02:36:32)

paulkerry · 2018-02-12 20:05:37

Could it be that you are sending the job through two filters...
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CU … s_to_print
One queue should be raw.

Logs - change LogLevel to debug in /etc/cups/cupsd.conf ,restart cups, then print something - logs are in /var/log/cups

QuimaxW · 2018-02-15 23:30:54

You're on to something there. I turned off Avahi and manually installed the printer with RAW on my laptop and it worked alright.

jasonwryan · 2018-02-15 23:33:22

Please remember to mark your thread as [Solved] by editing your first post and prepending it to the title.

QuimaxW · 2018-02-24 02:36:04

I tried a few things here after noting that the raw thing worked.

The first scenario, I left avahi enabled and added a local raw printer just for LibreOffice. This works alright, but you lose any printing customization options in LibreOffice. Also requires 2 printers to be installed on the system which means I have to think about what application I'm using for what printer selection.

If I turn off avahi and use only the local printer, things also work, but again still lose all customization.

The third option, which is what I went for, was to change my server to a Raw Que, disable avahi and create a local printer which uses the HP driver for it. This gives the best user experience, keeps my wife happier, with the only drawback of having to manually install the printer on every system that might need it.

Arch Linux

#1 2018-02-11 08:57:17

[Solved] Libreoffice printing to Cups shared printer over network

#2 2018-02-12 20:05:37

Re: [Solved] Libreoffice printing to Cups shared printer over network

#3 2018-02-15 23:30:54

Re: [Solved] Libreoffice printing to Cups shared printer over network

#4 2018-02-15 23:33:22

Re: [Solved] Libreoffice printing to Cups shared printer over network

#5 2018-02-24 02:36:04

Re: [Solved] Libreoffice printing to Cups shared printer over network

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