Printer stalls - HP1020 Laserjet - need some advice from you, guys...

[tomcat]

Hi there.
The title say it already. I have an USB connected HP 1020 Laserjet and I tried to get it to work under Fedora 5 and I am really stuck. I installed the foo2zjs package and did everything as explained here: http://foo2zjs.rkkda.com/ (linkage from linuxprinting.org) and the printer was detected once and printed some pages, then it died completely. The printer is absolutely dead and cannot be reacitvated by any means. Zero. Nada. :(

I took a look at the foo2zjs config files and everything seemed to be okay. I searched google and followed almost every hint I could find. All to no avail. I don't want to trash my FC5, but I am near to formatting the drive and putting something on it that will work with that printer (even if it means using Ubuntu! Beurk!).

Box: Fedora Core 5 machine with kernel, 2.6.16-1.2080_FC5.
My dmesg output looks like this:

usbcore: registered new driver usblp
drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: v0.13: USB Printer Device Class driver
drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: failed reading printer status
drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: error -110 reading printer status
usb 3-5: USB disconnect, address 7
drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: removed
usb 3-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 8
usb 3-6: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: USB Bidirectional printer dev 8 if 0 alt 0
proto 2 vid 0x03F0 pid 0x2B17
ppdev0: registered pardevice
ppdev0: unregistered pardevice
ppdev1: claim the port first
ppdev2: claim the port first
ppdev3: claim the port first
drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: failed reading printer status
drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: error -110 reading printer status
ppdev0: registered pardevice
ppdev0: unregistered pardevice
ppdev1: claim the port first
ppdev2: claim the port first
ppdev3: claim the port first
drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: failed reading printer status

Uploading the firmware manually with "cat /usr/share/foo2zjs/firmware/sihp1020.dl > /dev/usb/lp0" is impossible as /dev/usb/lp0 is reported to be busy. No reaction in any way. I already searched the bugzilla and found this entry https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=174961
and no one seems to care about the bug any more. :mad:

What shall I do??? Any tricks? I am really sick of this, desperate, near to cry and throw everything out of the window. I am hacking the box since several weeks now and I don't find a solution. How can I unblock the bloody lp0 entry? :confused:

In FC4, the printer at least worked partially (had to upload the firmware manually everytime), but FC5 is a nightmare in this respect. Pleeeeease, help me, if you can or think you can. I have nothing to loose...

[Finalzone]

I wonder if the problem is related to the firmwares and the printer although I cannot help much on that issue (I don't have that printer). It seems there are some change inside the hal policies that affect the driver (I only speculate). I will suggest to try another distro to see if that printer works fine. I wonder if other HP Laser Printers have the same problem.

[Firewing1]

Have your removed the old drivers, rebooted, and tried using HPLIP? (http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=91511)
Firewing1

[tomcat]

Have your removed the old drivers, rebooted, and tried using HPLIP? (http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=91511)
Firewing1I will give it one more try... argh... my nerves....

[tomcat]

I achieved some advances. I cleaned up the whole system, removed lots of stuff (e.g. foomatic), updated the database, reinstalled some stuff and the printer does not stall anymore. I could turn it off and on and it worked for now, but: It only prints blank pages! No text at all. This is getting silly... any further idea, firewing? May I need to reinstall the foo2zjs package now? Probably, eh?

[Firewing1]

That's an odd one -- Is the printer listed in the drivers list when you add it?
Firewing1

[tomcat]

When I ran system-config-printer, I set the printer up as hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_1020?device=/dev/usb/lp0 and I had to choose the HP1005 model, but that is 100% okay according to linuxprinting.org. It says there, that sometimes the HP1020 won't be listed in the model-list, thus you should choose the HP 1000 or 1005. In the /usr/share/foo2zjs/firmware folder, all three models (sihp1000.dl, sihp1005.dl, sihp1020.dl) are listed. In /usr/share/foomatic/db/source/printer, there is the HP-Laserjet_1020.xml. That one looks fine imho:
<printer id="printer/HP-LaserJet_1020">
<make>HP</make>
<model>LaserJet 1020</model>
<mechanism>
<laser/><!--not "color"-->
<resolution>
<dpi>
<x>600</x>
<y>600</y>
</dpi>
</resolution>
<consumables>
<comments>
<en>Cartridge containing toner and imaging drum</en>
</comments>
<!--one or more "partno" elements.--></consumables>
</mechanism>
<url>http://www.hp.com/</url>
<lang>
<proprietary/>
<!--no pjl--><!--No "text"?--></lang>
<autodetect>
<general>
<ieee1284>MFG:Hewlett-Packard;MDL:HP LaserJet 1020;CMD:ACL;CLS:PRINTER;DES:HP LaserJet 1020;</ieee1284>
<commandset>ACL</commandset>
<description>HP LaserJet 1020</description>
<manufacturer>Hewlett-Packard</manufacturer>
<model>HP LaserJet 1020</model>
</general>
</autodetect>
<functionality>B</functionality>
<driver></driver>
<!--no "contrib_url"-->
<comments>
<en>
Does not understand any standard language. Works with a &lt;a
href="http://support.ideainformatica.com/hplj1020/"&gt;modified
version&lt;/a&gt; of the &quot;foo2zjs&quot; driver. Foomatic data
and PPD files are in the driver package. It is planned to merge
this driver version with the upstream
&quot;foo2zjs&quot;.&lt;p&gt;

The printer is similar to the LaserJet 1000 and 1005.&lt;p&gt;

The firmware of the printer must be uploaded after turning it
on. The modified &quot;foo2zjs&quot; driver package contains a
script to do the upload automatically.&lt;p&gt;

</en>
</comments>
</printer>
What is interesting though is that in /usr/share/foomatic/db/source/PPD/HP/mono-laser, there is no ppd.gz file for the HP1020. But there should be one, right? At least according to the HP-Laserjet_1020.xml file.
When I check if the firmware got uploaded, it shows no problems.
[root@balzac fabian]# usb_printerid /dev/usb/lp0
GET_DEVICE_ID string:
MFG:Hewlett-Packard;MDL:HP LaserJet 1020;CMD:ACL;CLS:PRINTER;DES:HP LaserJet 1020;FWVER:20041129;
No idea why it spits out white pages...

[tomcat]

One more information I just remember, but overlooked yesterday at 1.15 am. I had this message displayed, too, when configuring the hplip stuff but continued nonetheless
Starting hpssd: can't lock /var/run/hpssd.pid, running daemon's pid may be 4213
Could this cause the blank pages?

[tomcat]

I just tried to activate the printer on Mandriva 2006 and it prints everything until I reboot the computer or turn the printer off and on again. Then I need to go through the whole uninstall/install procedure again. On the Ubuntuforum, someone apparently managed to get it running. I will install Ubuntu on a spare partition and test if it will really work there. I am doubtful, but maybe there is a hint in the config files that Ubuntu sets up that might help. Who knows? If you have any idea why I only get blank pages, just throw some ideas in.

[tomcat]

Ubuntu 6.04 does not work. But I finally got it running on Fedora. I had to relaunch the "make install" script of the foo2zjs package. I will make a full howto out of this, in case someone else needs this information. Thanks for you help. :)

[Finalzone]

Excellent. Glad to hear you settled the problem. You should provide the solution to the bugzilla to help developers fixing the issue.

[jrroig]

have the same problem with HP laserjet 1020. How did you get it working, tomcat?

[jrroig]

Oops, just saw your how-to.

That's a lot of work for such an ordinary printer.

Are there other printers as problematic as this one? I expected HP printers would be more painless than Epson or Canon because of HPLIP