Description of problem: I bought a refurbished HP Envy Photo 7858 printer about a year ago, to replace an aged Officejet whose scanner had died. I selected this particular model precisely because it had an automatic duplexer. Scanner and printer both work fine with Mageia, except for one thing - hplip won't let it print on US Letter size paper in duplex, even though the specs for the printer say it is OK, and it will do it in Windows 7. The description at https://bugs.launchpad.net/hplip/+bug/1892071 sums it up very well: Just upgraded to Ubuntu 20.04.1 and just got a new HP Envy Photo 7855 printer. I have run hp-setup and configured a print queue. One-sided printing works. But if I try to change the default settings in the "Printer Properties" dialog to allow duplex printing, it says there is a conflict between the paper size (8.5x11) and Long-edge duplex printing. I get the same message if I try to change it through the CUPS localhost:631 web interface. I looked at /etc/cups/ppd/ENVY_7800.ppd and found these two lines that seem relevant: *UIConstraints: *Duplex *PageSize Letter *UIConstraints: *PageSize Letter.FB *Duplex As root, I have edited /etc/cups/ppd/ENVY_Photo_7800.ppd to remove the two lines described above, and that made the problem disappear. The printer now prints on Letter-sized paper in duplex without complaint, and it works well. Unfortunately, I know that workaround will only last until the next hplip update. Clearly, this is an upstream problem. However, judging from the complete lack of response to the launchpad bug I quoted since it was filed in August of 2020(except for a comment I left a few minutes ago), hplip isn't very interested in fixing it any time soon. So, I'm filing a bug here. I don't know if there's anything Mageia developers can do, but if not at least the workaround I have found is out there for others to discover if they need it.
Uh-oh. I just read the description over again, and I see I didn't make it clear where I stopped quoting from the launchpad bug. The quote ended after the two .ppd lines. Credit must be given where it is due: I didn't find which lines to remove - he did.
Further research lead me to https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imaging-and-printing/supported_devices/index?language=it where I learned that the developers consider all of the Envy Photo 7800 series printers as fully supported (they aren't), and they have reached end-of-support status, meaning they won't be revisited except under extraordinary circumstances. Essentially, this means users are on their own. Disappointing.
Thank you TJ for the report, and all the research you did around it, and the fix; even though that needs doing after any hplip update. I wonder whether the simple edit could be done by a post-install script. Or have an install pop-up warning. Unsure whether this is down to hplip or cups, presuming the former. hplip is denoted 'nobody', and committed by various people, so assigning this bug globally.
Source RPM: (none) => hplip-3.21.2-1.mga8.src.rpmAssignee: bugsquad => pkg-bugs
See Also: (none) => https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30065
Hi, hplip-3.21.12-1.mga8 (and hplip-3.21.12-3.mga9) contains a patch that removes the two problematic lines from the PPD. Best regards, Nico.
CC: (none) => nicolas.salguero
Depends on: (none) => 30065
THANK YOU, Nicolas! I will be checking it out as soon as I'm on the computer where my printers are.
I will also check it tomorrow, at home, on my device. (cp1025nw).
CC: (none) => 79625490833
The change in the ppd didn't "take." After the update, my modified HP-ENVY-Photo-7800-series.ppd in /etc/cups/ppd had been replaced by a new one that still contains the two lines. The HP-ENVY-Photo-7800-series.ppd.O had not been changed. (I expected my modified ppd to be renamed to that.) The new file is smaller than the old one, so it appears that something must have been changed, but I don't know what. Looking at /usr/share/ppd/HP/hp-envy_photo_7800_series.ppd.gz with ark, I see the lines are still there, too. Again, the problem lines are: *UIConstraints: *PageSize Letter *Duplex *UIConstraints: *Duplex *PageSize Letter There is another set of lines concerning "Letter FB" (borderless), but I don't know if the printer is capable of printing borderless in duplex, so I'm not looking for that. Please understand, the user CAN get the printer to print on Letter paper in duplex with this printer, but with those two lines in place the UI objects, telling the user there's a conflict, and offering several chances to "fix" it before going ahead with the duplex print. Most annoying, and completely unnecessary.
(In reply to Thomas Andrews from comment #7) > The new file is smaller than the old one, so it appears that something must > have been changed, but I don't know what. > I checked for the difference between the new and old (unmodified) ppd files, and mainly it is that the default page size for the new one is A4, while the old one is Letter. I checked in system-config-printer, and indeed the default page size was now A4, and the default duplex setting was "Long Edge." I attempted to change the defaults in system-config-printer, but it wouldn't let me apply the changes if duplex was enabled unless A4 paper was selected.
Hi, hplip-3.21.12-3.mga8 (and hplip-3.21.12-6.mga9) really removes the lines from the PPD. Best regards, Nico.
After a simple update, the UI still objected to the duplex/Letter combination. I checked again, and /usr/share/ppd/HP/hp-envy_photo_7800_series.ppd.gz HAD been changed this time to allow it. So, I tried deleting the 7800-series printer, checked /etc/cups/ppd (the 7800 ppd files had been removed), rebooted (though it shouldn't have been necessary), and used system-config-printer to add the printer back again. That worked. The UI no longer objects to the duplex/Letter combination, whether as a default or as a temporary setting. And, duplex printing on Letter paper works just fine. Curious. I would not have expected it to be that way.
I believe this is as good as we are going to get it, so I think this can be marked as "Fixed."
Since HP only seemed to make these printers for a short time, and therefore the number of Mageia users is likely very low, we probably aren't going to find anybody who can confirm that it works for them. So, I'm going to mark this bug as "Resolved" "Works for me," as of the update to hplip 3.21.12.
Resolution: (none) => WORKSFORMEStatus: NEW => RESOLVED