HPLIP

Printing with CUPS/hplip: PCL XL error

Asked by January

Hello,

I have a hp color laserjet 3600. In theory, this is supported by HPLIP.

We use a CUPS server on Debian stable. The CUPS is configured properly and we have no trouble with any other printers.

I have installed the following packages:

ii hpijs 2.6.10+1.6.10-3 HP Linux Printing and Imaging - gs IJS drive
ii hpijs-ppds 2.6.10+1.6.10-3 HP Linux Printing and Imaging - HPIJS PPD fi
ii hplip 1.6.10-3 HP Linux Printing and Imaging System (HPLIP)
ii hplip-data 1.6.10-3 HP Linux Printing and Imaging - data files

Then, I configured CUPS using the URL generated by hp-makeuri and selected the respective printer driver.

Test page from CUPS prints correctly. PostScript documents seem to work roughly OK (although duplex printing does not really work -- the printer does strange things, something to do with paper sizes and trays, but lets solve one problem at a time). However, any PDF document that I am trying to print, produces exactly one page containing the following text:

PCL XL error
             Subsystem: KERNEL
             Error: IllegalTag
             Operator: 0x00
             Position: 2

Currently, I am using the pxljr driver for LaserJet 3550, which is nice, but does not print duplex.

Kind regards,

January

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January (january-weiner) said : 		#1

P.S. 1) I am resubmitting the problem, because I accidentally clicked on "Problem solved" - and it is not, really.

2) FAQ tells me to run hp-check, however, in the package that I use there is no such program.

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Aaron Albright (albrigha-deactivatedaccount) said : 		#2

January,

Just for future reference even if you solve a ticket you can re-open that same ticket.

I haven't seen this PCL XL error before. I'm thinking something is corrupted, try removing hpijs and hplip and installing hplip from our source at http://hplip.sf.net

It looks like the hpijs version is 2.6.10 (latest) and the hplip version is 1.6.10 (very old). The backends have changed a lot between the two version. Doing a clean install from source should solve your problem.

Hope this helps.

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January (january-weiner) said : 		#3

Hi Aaron,

thanks for the intel.

I am trying now to compile the hplip from sources. This does not work very well, since my cups server sits in a vserver environment without developer files (and I am afraid to play with a system that works and on which many people rely just to add another printer[*]), and while installation on another computer works, "make install" seems also to require gcc and developer files to work properly.

Do you have any hints how to deal with that? Maybe a recipe how to build a hplip Debian package? Any help would be greatly appreciated! And as soon as I have figured out how to deal with that without (a) installing developer files on a production server, or (b) installing and configuring cups on a workstation which is not supposed to contact the printers directly, I'll let you know how it went.

In the meanwhile, I'll just stick to the pxljr driver.

Kind regards,

January

[*] I know that in theory installing developer packages should never be a problem, and in theory I could clean up the mess right afterwards.

I also have practical experience with the phrase "in theory".

Revision history for this message
January (january-weiner) said : 		#4

ooops, pressed the "Problem solved" button again. Crap!

Revision history for this message
January (january-weiner) said : 		#5

I managed to install the hplip package from sources. The printer works now.

There were minor issues with the installation. Notably, I did not manage to compile the package on another computer and install it only on the target. I had to download all the developer files to the target vserver, which I think is not the best way to do it. I have submitted a short overview of the installation:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/hplip/+bug/162605

Revision history for this message
Aaron Albright (albrigha-deactivatedaccount) said : 		#6

I'm glad it's working now. I'll have a look at the bug and follow up on it. Although things are rather hectic so I may not get to it until later.

A