Ubuntu

Pronlem with paper size in ubuntu 14.04

Asked by smurf

HI. My linux box in Ubuntu 14.04 with Gnome FlashBack.
Since some time my Brother HL-2140 fails collecting the sheets from the tray, I thought it was a hardware problem, but it is not.
Yesterday, by chance, I realized that in libreoffice, when I print, the window where you select the printer, the pages to be printed, and so on, in the "Properties" window, there is a parameter that tells the paper size is "Letter", the curious thing is that the parameter can not be changed.

The printer driver is the Brother HL-2140 for CUPS.

So I started searching the net and I found mainly this:

luca@pc-sala:~$ paperconf
a4
luca@pc-sala:~$

that is already set correctly, anyway I also tried to set it again with the command

paperconfig -p a4

and I rebooted the system, however, nothing.
I also tried to change the "locale" variable, but even this without result.

The printer system manager say "Paper size: A4" and CUPS as well, however, at the time of printing the paper size is set to "letter" and that messes up everything.
This is not a internal parameter for libreoffice, because the libreoffice program that sets the printer also says A4.

Even in

cat /etc/cups/printers.conf

never appears the parameter "letter".

No program prints correctly: libreoffice, gedit, firefox, thunderbird, etc., I always have to use the manual paper feeder sheet by sheet.

Does anyone have an idea?

Thx a lot.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

What is the output of:

lsb_release -a; uname -a; apt-cache policy libreoffice; dpkg -l | grep -i brother

Thanks

Revision history for this message
smurf (luca-dgh) said : 		#2

Thanks for your help.

Here the output.

luca@pc-sala:~$ lsb_release -a; uname -a; apt-cache policy libreoffice; dpkg -l | grep -i brother
LSB Version: core-2.0-amd64:core-2.0-noarch:core-3.0-amd64:core-3.0-noarch:core-3.1-amd64:core-3.1-noarch:core-3.2-amd64:core-3.2-noarch:core-4.0-amd64:core-4.0-noarch:core-4.1-amd64:core-4.1-noarch:security-4.0-amd64:security-4.0-noarch:security-4.1-amd64:security-4.1-noarch
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS
Release: 14.04
Codename: trusty
Linux pc-sala 3.16.0-57-generic #77~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Thu Dec 17 23:20:00 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
libreoffice:
  Instalados: 1:5.2.3~rc2-0ubuntu1~trusty1
  Candidato: 1:5.2.3~rc2-0ubuntu1~trusty1
  Tabla de versión:
 *** 1:5.2.3~rc2-0ubuntu1~trusty1 0
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/libreoffice/ppa/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1:4.2.8-0ubuntu4 0
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-security/universe amd64 Packages
        500 http://pe.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-updates/universe amd64 Packages
     1:4.2.3~rc3-0ubuntu2 0
        500 http://pe.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/universe amd64 Packages
ii brhl2140lpr 2.0.2-1 i386 Brother HL-2140 LPR driver
ii cupswrapperhl2140 2.0.2-1 i386 Brother HL2140 CUPS wrapper driver
ii printer-driver-ptouch 1.3-8 amd64 printer driver Brother P-touch label printers
luca@pc-sala:~$

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#3

Then contact the PPA maintainer. You aren't using the packages from the Ubuntu repositories and results cannot be guaranteed.

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smurf (luca-dgh) said : 		#4

Wait, i'm using PPA only for libreoffice, any other packages are form Ubuntu repos and libreoffice is not the only program with this problem.
As I said before, no programs was printing properly.

Anyway, I found the trick and I think is not related with PPA.

The Brother printer is shared and published because I have some other devices in my home network. Surfing the net I red that some people suffer problem similar to mine especially when the printer is shared.

I tried to unshare the printer, then I defined the server to not publish the shared printer and to not admit printings from the network, then I restarted CUPS.

Magically my Brother printer starts to work properly (in the properties windows mentioned above the "Paper size" changed from "letter" to "US Letter", and some other parameters have changed).
After that I tried to "publish" again "the shared printers" and a"dmit jobs from the net", still I did not share the Brother printer. In the properties window parameters have changed again as before ("US Letter" to "letter" and so on), but the printer was still working properly.
Finally I tried to share the printer and is still working fine.

So I solved my problem, but I wonder why server share/unshare affect the printer settings and the printer behaviour?

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smurf (luca-dgh) said : 		#5

problem solved

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smurf (luca-dgh) said : 		#6

Definitively the problem is the sharing server, because the printer was not achievable form the windows pc, so I connected the server (from the printer system manager window) and the Brother printer started again to mess the paper during printing.
Unchecked everything about sharing the printer started again to print properly.