installing USB printer on OS/2 Warp 4.52

[Pete]

Hi KevinP

Almost definitely something missing with regard to cups/usb communication. Check if you have [UNIXROOT]:\usr\lib\libusb10.dll - from package libusb1-legacy-0 as that could be the "missing link" between cups/usb that I have failed to remember to date.

I see you got wireless working although it does not sound quite right...

When you get "filter failed" message it is worth checking the log file using the web interface to see what went wrong. Also if a print job fails it is worth deleting any jobs in the cups printer queue using the web interface as they can block any further attempts to print and slow the interface down a bit.

You also seem to have several printers which may be causing "system confusion".
Might be worth considering deleting all existing cups printers using the web interface and any OS/2 printers (Printers folder) - use prndrv.exe to delete any queues and printers left over on the OS/2 side and starting from scratch to do a manual printer creation.


Regards

Pete

[KevinP]

Hi KevinP

Almost definitely something missing with regard to cups/usb communication. Check if you have [UNIXROOT]:\usr\lib\libusb10.dll - from package libusb1-legacy-0 as that could be the "missing link" between cups/usb that I have failed to remember to date.

I see you got wireless working although it does not sound quite right...

When you get "filter failed" message it is worth checking the log file using the web interface to see what went wrong. Also if a print job fails it is worth deleting any jobs in the cups printer queue using the web interface as they can block any further attempts to print and slow the interface down a bit.

You also seem to have several printers which may be causing "system confusion".
Might be worth considering deleting all existing cups printers using the web interface and any OS/2 printers (Printers folder) - use prndrv.exe to delete any queues and printers left over on the OS/2 side and starting from scratch to do a manual printer creation.


Regards

Pete

Hi, Pete.  libusb1-legacy-0 had not been installed on my system so I installed it this morning.  [root]usr\lib\libusb10.dll is now there.  I used prndrv.exe to delete other printers but there are still a couple of old drivers that are stubborn.  It returns an error that it can't find any .ini information for them.  Their shadows are gone from the Printer Manager menu but their labels still show up (!!!). 

I will get back to this later today but I did use the Web interface to recognize the printer.  It still only recognizes it as a Network printer; it does not recognize it as a Local Printer. 

Once the printer is recognized and installed by the Web interface it still does not show up in Printer Manager.  Is it supposed to?  It seems that with Printer Manager or CUPSWIZ the driver selection process is different.

I noticed that there is an hp-lip-gui package.  I tried to install it yesterday but got an error message about needing some version of python.  I will check into that further when I have time.  I thought that if there is a GUI for hp-lip it might help "see" some things.

[KevinP]

Still no luck.  I can install a printer using the Web interface and print a test page from it.  However, even though it is set up in the Web interface it does not show up in the printer options if I try to print a Web page, for example.  I can't install a printer using Printer Manager directly, I have to use CUPSWIZ.  That shows up in Printer Manager.  It shows up as a printer option in Star Office and the Web browser but it won't print anything.  I get an error message that there is a problem spooling to the CUPS server.  Maybe there is still something missing I have not installed.

[Pete]

Hi KevinP

Sounds like the OS/2 printer output port is not setup correctly.
Open the OS/2 printer Properties, Output Port page, check that the cupsport (CUPS1 ?) has CUPS Server set to localhost and the CUPS Printer Name is the same as the CUPS Queue Name in the cups web interface - http://localhost:631/printers/


Regards

Pete

[KevinP]

Hi KevinP

Sounds like the OS/2 printer output port is not setup correctly.
Open the OS/2 printer Properties, Output Port page, check that the cupsport (CUPS1 ?) has CUPS Server set to localhost and the CUPS Printer Name is the same as the CUPS Queue Name in the cups web interface - http://localhost:631/printers/


Regards

Pete

Hi, Pete

There is a difference in the two.  I'm attaching some photos.  The Web interface names the printer HPEA717B.  CUPSWIZ names it HPENVY45.  PRNDRV shows the queue as HPENVY45.  The problem seems to be (or, one of them) that Printer Manager will not let me change the name in the dialog box.  The cursor is there and blinking but I can't change it from HPENVY45.  Is there perhaps an .ini file where I can do this?  This morning when I set this up again the Web interface showed 2 separate printers as it has done before.  It has not always done that. 

[Pete]

Hi KevinP

No, you do not need to change the cupsport setting.
There are actually 2 printer queues: 1 for the OS/2 printer which is HPENVY45 and 1 for the cups printer queue which is HPEA7171B
The OS/2 printer passes the print job via the OS/2 printer queue, HPENVY45, to the cups printer queue HPEA7171B for processing.

No idea how you have ended up with a 2nd cups printer after a reboot though... Unless this is a previously deleted cups printer making a reappearance?

Suggest you click on HP_ENVY_4500_series in the cups admin to bring up the admin page for that printer where you can select Delete printer from the dropdown list. Having only the 1 printer should help clarify things.

Also no idea why you are using a HP Color Laserjet 4500 series driver either - hplip includes the Envy 4500 series driver.
In the OS/2 printer Properties, Printer driver page, Right Mouse click on the printer driver showing in Installed printer driver panel and select Install, New driver. You should be able to select the HP Envy driver from the list displayed. When installed set that as the Default driver for the printer and delete the Laserjet driver.


Regards

Pete

[KevinP]

Hi KevinP

No, you do not need to change the cupsport setting.
There are actually 2 printer queues: 1 for the OS/2 printer which is HPENVY45 and 1 for the cups printer queue which is HPEA7171B
The OS/2 printer passes the print job via the OS/2 printer queue, HPENVY45, to the cups printer queue HPEA7171B for processing.

No idea how you have ended up with a 2nd cups printer after a reboot though... Unless this is a previously deleted cups printer making a reappearance?

Suggest you click on HP_ENVY_4500_series in the cups admin to bring up the admin page for that printer where you can select Delete printer from the dropdown list. Having only the 1 printer should help clarify things.

Also no idea why you are using a HP Color Laserjet 4500 series driver either - hplip includes the Envy 4500 series driver.
In the OS/2 printer Properties, Printer driver page, Right Mouse click on the printer driver showing in Installed printer driver panel and select Install, New driver. You should be able to select the HP Envy driver from the list displayed. When installed set that as the Default driver for the printer and delete the Laserjet driver.


Regards

Pete

Hi, Pete

The driver thing comes about during the CUPSWIZ installation process.  If I select the Envy 4500 driver it throws an error message about a .ppd not being correct and that I will have to select a "presentation" driver to be displayed to the system.  The only drivers offered are postscript drivers.   The Color Laser 4500 seemed to be the nearest to the description of my printer.  There is an Envy 4500 .ppd file among the many HP drivers and I unzipped that and tried it but it didn't work. 

[KevinP]

I am beginning to wonder if this simply will not be possible on my system.  I ran into the same thing trying to install the Arca Noae modern USB drivers.  They simply would not work properly on my system because of the outdated kernel.  I still wonder if there is something missing that is needed (or perhaps "some things").  I can set up a printer in the CUP Web interface but its operation seems to be inconsistent.  Sometimes I can print a Test Page but sometimes not.  In Printer Manager I am given two options:  create a CUPS-based printer or a legacy printer.  If I click the button to set up a CUPS-based printer, nothing happens.  I have wondered if perhaps it simply requires time to respond as does the Web interface . . . a *lot* of time.  I usually use the CUPSWIZ program because it at least responds quickly.  I have made a few photos of the process but I'm not sure what might be helpful.  I know it is hard to figure things out without seeing everything.  I can try to set up a printer using the "other" option but the system cannot find drivers.  The drivers for the HP Envy 4500 are (or, should be) in [root]\usr\share\ppd\HP.  I unzipped the .gz file hp-envy_4500_series.ppd.gz file in that directory.  If I select it as a driver, I get the error message that the parameters could not be imported due to an incompatible PPD file.  In the CUPSWIZ program I can follow the tree to import the driver but then it says that the driver can't be found in PSPRINT.DRV and I have to choose another driver.  The Envy 4500 is not listed among those choices so I have tried selecting "the next best thing" which has not worked.  My installation of hp-lip may be missing some of the utilities normally with it (like hp-setup and hp-toolbox).  At least, I have not found how to activate them.

There is an hp-lip-gui program in the yum repository but when I have tried to install it I get the error message in the last photo.  I do not know what that means and what prerequisite it needs since I do not see anything similar in the repository list.

[Dave Yeo]

About the GUI error, do you have the latest Python installed? "Python --version" should return Pyhton 3.13.11
Do you have Qt4 installed?
About the Arca Noae USB drivers, possibly they depend on ACPI, even indirectly as ACPI may give more interrupts. Though I think your computer is an old P4 so how much the ACPI package would help, I don't know. Still might be worth testing it. The ACPI.PSD is almost a kernel component

[Pete]

Hi KevinP

Found I have CUPSWIZ 1.20  and Printman 0.86 installed on an earlier ArcaOS system so gave a try at creating your 4500 Series printer. These are the steps I used:-

Open Printers folder
Start Install Printer
Select Install Local/Network printer (cups based)
Click Next  - this starts cupswiz to create the cups bits
Select Make: HP
Select model: Envy 4500 Series hpijs
Click Next
Select detected printer
Click Next
Enter
   Name: Envy4500
   Location: Office
   Description: Already filled in with HP Envy 4500 Series hpijs
Click Next
Check Create printer object
Make sure Presentation driver is set as PSPRINT
Click Create
When notified that printer has been created click Close

Check Printers folder: It should have a Printer object titled HP Envy 4500 Series hpijs with the following:-
   Physical name:  HPENVY45
   Printer driver:  PSPRINT.HP Envy 4500 Series hpijs driver
   Output port: CUPSn (n=whatever number it is given) using CUPS server : localhost and CUPS name: Envy4500


I don't have the same printer so can only guess if it works or not - in theory it should. Maybe you want to give it a try.
I selected the model with the hpijs ending simply because I have had problems with non-hpijs ppd files in the past... printer creation failed due to dodgy ppd file at least once so I used the hpijs version which worked for me.


Hope the above helps - otherwise we could try walking you through the painful process of manual creation of cups and OS/2 printers  :-)


Regards

Pete

[KevinP]

About the GUI error, do you have the latest Python installed? "Python --version" should return Pyhton 3.13.11
Do you have Qt4 installed?
About the Arca Noae USB drivers, possibly they depend on ACPI, even indirectly as ACPI may give more interrupts. Though I think your computer is an old P4 so how much the ACPI package would help, I don't know. Still might be worth testing it. The ACPI.PSD is almost a kernel component

Hi, Dave

I did buy the Arca Noae drivers subscription which included ACPI so I have that installed.  It did not seem to help.  I suppose I could try again but the v10.253 drivers have worked OK so I've been leery of possibly introducing any opportunity for instability.  The Arca Noae drivers never would load in the correct order and it seemed that the outdated kernel might be the issue.  However, the 10.253 drivers seem to use the same basic order so perhaps I could get the AN drivers to load now that everything else has been updated as much as possible.

[KevinP]

About the GUI error, do you have the latest Python installed? "Python --version" should return Pyhton 3.13.11
Do you have Qt4 installed?
About the Arca Noae USB drivers, possibly they depend on ACPI, even indirectly as ACPI may give more interrupts. Though I think your computer is an old P4 so how much the ACPI package would help, I don't know. Still might be worth testing it. The ACPI.PSD is almost a kernel component

My Python version is 3.13.2 which seems to be the only one available on the yum repositories.  I don't think I have Qt4 installed but will check.  I may have tried to install it but could not.

[KevinP]

Hi KevinP

Found I have CUPSWIZ 1.20  and Printman 0.86 installed on an earlier ArcaOS system so gave a try at creating your 4500 Series printer. These are the steps I used:-

Open Printers folder
Start Install Printer
Select Install Local/Network printer (cups based)
Click Next  - this starts cupswiz to create the cups bits
Select Make: HP
Select model: Envy 4500 Series hpijs
Click Next
Select detected printer
Click Next
Enter
   Name: Envy4500
   Location: Office
   Description: Already filled in with HP Envy 4500 Series hpijs
Click Next
Check Create printer object
Make sure Presentation driver is set as PSPRINT
Click Create
When notified that printer has been created click Close

Check Printers folder: It should have a Printer object titled HP Envy 4500 Series hpijs with the following:-
   Physical name:  HPENVY45
   Printer driver:  PSPRINT.HP Envy 4500 Series hpijs driver
   Output port: CUPSn (n=whatever number it is given) using CUPS server : localhost and CUPS name: Envy4500


I don't have the same printer so can only guess if it works or not - in theory it should. Maybe you want to give it a try.
I selected the model with the hpijs ending simply because I have had problems with non-hpijs ppd files in the past... printer creation failed due to dodgy ppd file at least once so I used the hpijs version which worked for me.


Hope the above helps - otherwise we could try walking you through the painful process of manual creation of cups and OS/2 printers  :-)


Regards

Pete

Hi, Pete

I followed your instructions but still did not have any luck.  A couple of "new" things I tried:  I installed eCUPS-HP.DRV.  That seemed to give more driver options.  I also tried putting the port number in the CUPS server box (localhost:631) but that didn't work.  I used the hpijs driver in the Web installation and could not print a Test Page afterwards.  I think what I had used before was the hpcups option.  But, I seem to at least be getting a quicker response:  when I send a print job (from Star Office for example) I get an error message that there has been an error in spooling to the CUPS server.  So, that made me wonder if there is something about the CUPS port.  I have v1.04 of CUPSPDR.  CUPSWIZ is v1.18 and Prinman is 0.85 or 0.86. 

One question I had after reading your instructions:  How do you have CUPSWIZ installed?  I installed from the .zip file and the instructions just say to put it in "a suitable directory".  I just made a CUPSWIZ directory under [root].  I guess that's why I am not getting any action from Printman when click the button to install a CUPS-based printer. 

I'm willing to try whatever you suggest.  It still seems like there is something missing or missed communication/missing link somewhere. 

[Dave Yeo]

Hi Kevin, my Python is from exp, yours should be new enough as it is newer then 3.9

[Pete]

Hi KevinP

The ecups-hp.drv drivers are an older version of psprint.drv with some hp drivers already loaded so are probably not much use to you.

No port number needed.

You should check whether there are any failed print jobs still in the cups queue and Cancel/Delete any that exist before attempt any more printing - you may find a Test Page will print then.

I'm using this cups port

H:\OS2\DLL>bldlevel CUPS.PDR
Build Level Display Facility Version 6.12.675 Sep 25 2001
(C) Copyright IBM Corporation 1993-2001
Signature:       @#netlabs.org:1.04#@##1## 1 May 2013 21:45:10      REINFORCE:::
:::@@CUPS port driver
Vendor:          netlabs.org
Revision:        1.04.04
Date/Time:       1 May 2013 21:45:10
Build Machine:   REINFORCE
File Version:    1.4
Description:     CUPS port driver


It seems later versions of cupswiz, cups.pdr and print manager are only available with ArcaOS - both my systems are ArcaOS and these packages are installed during ArcaOS installation so cannot advise on installing from zip file. I think I would either have both in the same directory or make sure the respective paths are in config.sys SET Path statement.

The latest publicly available versions of cupswiz, cups.pdr and print manager seem to be at  http://www.altsan.org/os2/printing/  - seem to be the versions you have.

As the psprint.drv does not contain a HP Envy 4500 Series option when you go through the motions of creating a printer something obviously goes wrong somewhere. The difficulty is figuring out where...

I think you need to start with creating a printer using the cups web interface and getting it to print the cups Test page.

Then we may have to manually add a modified version of the ppd file that cups uses to a "clean" psprint.drv - but lets see if we can get the cups Test page to print first.


Regards

Pete