Ubuntu
cups package

LibreOffice is slow to display remote cups printers (trusty)

Asked by ubuntu-tester on 2015-02-06

Hello everybody,

I use remote printers over CUPS server (a remote CUPS server, not the CUPS service locally installed on my computers). On Ubuntu 14.04, All printings work fine except on LibreOffice applications (Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math) : when I go to File > Print... menu, the application freezes about 2 minutes before displaying printers list. I don't notice this issue on other applications.

All my computers installed with Ubuntu 14.04 are impacted (tested with specific and standard installation).
On Ubuntu 14.04, I tested with LDAP, local, and root accounts => same issue
On Ubuntu 12.04, I tested with LDAP, local, and root accounts => it works fine

When I launch "lowriter" in a terminal, there is no error message when I go to File > Print... menu, and strace command doesn't return me anything. Using "find -P / -xdev -cmin -5" and "find -P ~ -xdev -cmin -5", I don't find any log files about this issue (I have 2 partitions mounted in / and /home).

There is bug report about lpq on Ubuntu 14.04, this bug also impact my computers installed with Ubuntu 14.04 : "lpq has long hang before completion." => https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cups/+bug/1342271

Do you know if it may have a link between lpq and libreoffice issue ?
I would like to know if anyone uses remote printers over CUPS server and has this issue or not ?
Anyone know how to debug this issue ?

Thanks :)

Question information

Language:: English Edit question

Status:: Answered

For:: Ubuntu cups Edit question

Assignee:: No assignee Edit question

Last query:: 2015-02-06

Last reply:: 2015-02-06

Link existing bug

actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said on 2015-02-06:

Sounds like the same bug to me.

ubuntu-tester (ubuntu-tester1) said on 2015-02-06:

In fact I have this issue for many applications : libreoffice, firefox, thunderbird, system-config-printers ...
This solution works for me : in /etc/cups/client.conf we added /version=1.1 to the server address :
ServerName printhost.yourserveraddress.com/version=1.1

See http://askubuntu.com/questions/518723/ubuntu-14-04-cups-problem

ubuntu-tester (ubuntu-tester1) said on 2015-02-06:

In fact this solution above works for libreoffice, firefox ... but doesn't work for system-config-printer :
This bug report seems to indicate that system-config-printer doesn't respect the version=1.1 option in /etc/cups/client.conf :

"Viewing the network traffic with wireshark I see that system-config-printer is making some requests with IPP version 2.0, and it is these requests which the CUPS server is objecting to. system-config-printer (or perhaps the python CUPS libraries it uses, or perhaps the underlying C CUPS API) should respect the version=1.1 option in client.conf."

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/system-config-printer/+bug/1364025

ubuntu-tester (ubuntu-tester1) said on 2015-02-07:

Here is a summary,

My environnement :

Ubuntu 14.04 clients : cups 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.2
Ubuntu 14.04 clients : system-config-printer-gnome 1.4.3+20140219-0ubuntu2.5
Ubuntu 14.04 clients : python-cups 1.9.66-0ubuntu2
Ubuntu 14.04 clients : libcups2 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.2

RHEL server : cups 1.4.2

Problem 1 (problem of configuration) :
On Ubuntu 14.04, when I tried to access to print menu in any application, it freezed about 2 minutes before displaying printers list. No problem with Ubuntu 12.04.

Solution :
Add in /etc/cups/client.conf /version=1.1 to the server address : ServerName printhost.yourserveraddress.com/version=1.1

Explanation :
"As of CUPS version 1.6, the client defaults to IPP 2.0. If the server uses CUPS <= 1.5 / IPP <= 1.1, the client does not downgrade the protocol automatically and thus cannot communicate with the server. A workaround (undocumented as of 2013-05-07, but see this bug report) is to put the following in /etc/cups/client.conf:
ServerName HOSTNAME-OR-IP-ADDRESS[:PORT]/version=1.1"

Sources :
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CUPS_printer_sharing#Using_a_CUPS_1.6.x_client_with_a_.3C.3D_1.5.x_server
http://askubuntu.com/questions/518723/ubuntu-14-04-cups-problem
https://www.cups.org/documentation.php/doc-1.6/ref-client-conf.html