Numerous Printer Icons - one per job

BillGradwohl · #1 15th January 2012, 10:19 PM

Fully patched F16 on an I686 platform (Asus netbook)

Recently, every print job leaved behind a printer icon along the bottom of the screen. This idn't used to happen. Anyone else seeing this?

I've attached a snapshot of what I'm talking about.

Thank You

Chilly Willy · #2 16th January 2012, 12:57 AM

Are the print jobs finishing?
What happens if you click on one, can you close it manually?
How many times are you clicking on [whatever to print]?
It appears like you may be clicking multiple times, OR you are setting up a printer each time you print. (both are not necessary, as you probably already know)

nonamedotc · #3 16th January 2012, 02:54 AM

I can confirm that this is what is happening with F16/gnome 3. After you print something, if you click on the notification that appears informing that the print job is completed. you would not see these icons. On the other hand, if you ignore these, they persist till you see them.

If any of your print jobs had any error, it can be seen by clicking on the relevant icon. Basically, one might have to look at each and close them manually. I do not if all of these can be closed together though (I have never tried that!)

BillGradwohl · #4 16th January 2012, 03:43 AM

The printing is being done via a macro in Libreoffice Calc that's been working for years. I wrote the POS system. No person is causing a print job to commence. The initial install of F16 Gnome 3 did NOT display this anomoly. This started recently, probably via a yum update of some component. I don't normally use this machine (my employees use it in a restaurant), so I'm not sure exactly when this started or why.

The original way that printing notification was done on F16 G3 was really annoying me when I worked on this machine. Every print, it would pull up a notification that would block the sheet icons inside Libreoffice calc. I'd have to wait for that damned notification to go away to hit a sheet in calc. That's how I know that at that time, the notifications would go away permanently once they bothered me long enough - about 4 seconds.

The print jobs are finishing - no problem.
Clicking on an icon does provide a way to get rid of the icon, but my employees (actually the software) do a lot of printing of receipts and the icon count goes into the dozens. Who wants to sit there all afternoon right clicking each one and selecting Remove?

I want all notifications to cease, and if I can't have that, at least pop them up and tear them down and make them permanently go away. What good are several dozen icons on a screen. No one can tell which icon was for what print out, so letting them hang around is ridiculous.

nonamedotc · #5 16th January 2012, 12:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BillGradwohl

The printing is being done via a macro in Libreoffice Calc that's been working for years. I wrote the POS system. No person is causing a print job to commence. The initial install of F16 Gnome 3 did NOT display this anomoly. This started recently, probably via a yum update of some component. I don't normally use this machine (my employees use it in a restaurant), so I'm not sure exactly when this started or why.

The original way that printing notification was done on F16 G3 was really annoying me when I worked on this machine. Every print, it would pull up a notification that would block the sheet icons inside Libreoffice calc. I'd have to wait for that damned notification to go away to hit a sheet in calc. That's how I know that at that time, the notifications would go away permanently once they bothered me long enough - about 4 seconds.

My experience with the notifications has been consistent - icon appear for ALL printing jobs from the beginning.

Quote:

I want all notifications to cease.

Did you try to "turn OFF" notifications by clicking on the username on the right top of the screen and toggling the option for notifications?

BillGradwohl · #6 16th January 2012, 12:24 PM

If your experience differs from mine from the beginning, then there must be some switch that was set differently for us. That's the only thing that makes sense.

I dont want to turn off ALL notifications, just the printer ones. I have no idea what NOTIFICATIONS that option is referring to and therefore I want all of them except these dumb printer ones.

I believe this is just another case of lousy documentation. The developers know where all the triggers are, but they're not telling us except when we stumble in on some issue and they then enlighten us on that particular nuisance. If the docs could ever catch up with the code, Linux would really take off.

Chilly Willy · #7 16th January 2012, 07:45 PM

Please take note that just because a job prints, doesn't mean it is finished. You have to go in & look at the print status (usually in the queue) to make sure.

I have yet to see those icons on my machine, I get a bar with text in it at the center of the bottom of the screen. So I can't check, so what does the icon display when you click on one? - I'm still wondering if it is multiple's of the same print job (or one hanging) - & this could be happening more than once as well.

If you haven't already, you may have to run a test of this printing system of yours & see for yourself what is going on. I wouldn't rely on an "employee" for the info.

nonamedotc · #8 16th January 2012, 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chilly Willy

I have yet to see those icons on my machine, I get a bar with text in it at the center of the bottom of the screen. So I can't check, so what does the icon display when you click on one? - I'm still wondering if it is multiple's of the same print job (or one hanging) - & this could be happening more than once as well.

I get a message that gives the status as you say (in the center of the screen). If I do not acknowledge the message (click on the message that appears), it minimizes in to an icon as the OP says. Also, this is not just for completed jobs. Even if there are some errors such as no paper, no communication with printer, etc., these icons will appear with the appropriate error message.

FYI - It is not just print icons that have this behavior. I have in the past downloaded torrents of various linux distros using transmission, same scenario there. For every torrent completed, there will be "Torrent successfully completed" message with an icon minimized.

Did you change (or know of) any notification settings?

Chilly Willy · #9 16th January 2012, 08:32 PM

NOPE - just running the "defaults" (as best I can recall) - I DID preupgrade from F14 though.

It MAY be that I haven't done enough printing (with F16) yet to notice.

christian_l · #10 3rd February 2012, 09:56 PM

I had a similar problem with my network printer - two messages were added to the message tray for each job: one that it was printing, and one that it has finished. The notifications switch under my name in the top right corner was set to OFF. However, after I set it to ON, the messages are now shortly popping up on the bottom of the screen, but then vanish.

Is anybody seeing the same behavior? I guess what I would want is an option to either completely disable these printing messages (unless something goes wrong), or a "clear all current messages in the tray" button.

Mike1974 · #11 26th March 2012, 10:23 PM

I run F16 x86_64, I have this problem also, every print job, however generated, creates an icon for when the job is queued and a further one for when a job is completed as well as an icon for any failed jobs. This happens across several printers, network and local.

I found that this only happens when notifications are switched OFF in the top right menu. When notifications are switched on there is a brief pop up at the bottom centre which clears after a few seconds only leaving a notification icon behind following a failure of some sort. This is how I would imagine it was supposed to work.

The behaviour when notifications are off appears to be a bug in my opinion, the functionality is tedious and counter intuitive.

Mike.

Chilly Willy · #12 26th March 2012, 10:36 PM

Mike,

I run mine with the notifications ON - it works as you described, & that's also the way I prefer it to be.
As for the OFF mode, I'm not sure HOW it is SUPPOSED to be but what you said about the way it is working IS a bit weird as I'd expect to get NO notifications what so ever.