usbprinter.device problem if printer not turned on

[abalaban]

Hypex: can't it be that your USB printer is exposing some other interfaces (scanner?) that Andy's does not ? I don't have a single clue of what I'm saying but just trying to help finding the reason of your printer (mis)behavior...

Also can you test cold booting from the OS4 CD printer switched off from the start ?

[tonyw]

The printer support in OS4 has always been sadly lacking (we can't use anything from OS 3.9 and Turboprint barely runs because of its old bugs). Adding USB drivers in the chain only exposes more problems.

Someone will address the printing architecture one day, but there is a limit to the work that we can spend on legacy support. Any decent printer these days has network and Postscript support and OS4 runs just fine using that interface.

[xenic]

Nothing untoward happens. No requesters, no ringhio notifications.

Maybe it would help if we knew if we are talking about the same version of usbprinter.device or not. The version information for my usbprinter.device is v53.2 (11/12/2009). The previous version 52.8 (3/11/2008) does not exhibit the problems we are referring to. The problem is especially noticable in older word processing programs (Final Writer in my case) that open printer.device when they start in order to get the current printer prefs settings.

After the v53.2 usbprinter.device was released several people reported a problem with setting usbprinter.device in the "Port device" gadget located in the "Printer type" Tab of the printer prefs program. You can't set the "Port device" gadget to usbprinter.device unless the printer is connected and turned on. That's not the case with parallel.device, serial.device or the previous version (52.8) of the usbprinter.device.

If the beta testers are using a newer version of usbprinter.device and they can't reproduce the problem, then maybe it has been fixed. What version are you using (broadblues)??

[xenic]

The printer support in OS4 has always been sadly lacking (we can't use anything from OS 3.9 and Turboprint barely runs because of its old bugs). Adding USB drivers in the chain only exposes more problems.

The problem wasn't exposed in the previous version of usbprinter.device so I think it's a usbprinter.device problem and not a general printer support problem. If you back up your printer prefs, change the "Port device" to parallel.device or serial.device, save the settings and reboot; you won't be able to change the "Port device" to usbprinter.device in Printer Prefs unless a printer is connected and turned on. If you can change it with the printer turned off then you may not be using usbprinter.device 53.2 (which I believe is the latest public release).

[xenic]

Also can you test cold booting from the OS4 CD printer switched off from the start ?

I can't speak for Hypex but my SAM Flex 800 worked so poorly with the OS4 CD that came with it and so many changes have been made to UBoot and the OS to get the system working normally, that booting from the CD is no longer an option for me. Booting with the printer turned off isn't a problem. It isn't until a program opens printer.device (which I assume attempts to open usbprinter.device) that the problem occurs.

[Hypex]

Hypex: can't it be that your USB printer is exposing some other interfaces (scanner?) that Andy's does not ? I don't have a single clue of what I'm saying but just trying to help finding the reason of your printer (mis)behavior...

My printer does expose a scanner but if my printer is turned off how does OS4 know that? Does usbprinter.device record all drives attached to the one printer and complain for each one misisng?

Also can you test cold booting from the OS4 CD printer switched off from the start ?

I will do this test. But I will have to set a another HP driver for my printer and add that usb device in then turn my printer off then...

[Hypex]

The printer support in OS4 has always been sadly lacking

Lately yes, but I find my HP works fine, epecially as I use my own compiled driver with no name confusion.

IMHO all the HP drivers should be stripped down to generic types.

Someone will address the printing architecture one day, but there is a limit to the work that we can spend on legacy support. Any decent printer these days has network and Postscript support and OS4 runs just fine using that interface.

For me this isn't a good enough solution. All common printers use a USB interface and that isn't considered a legacy interface yet.

Any a decent printer as you say with those features will cost a lot more than a common shelf variety. Things may be better today but last time I looked a PS supporting printer was going to cost about $500 IIRC and was only a B&W laser with no scanner! That was too much when I was after a reasonable printer/scanner/copier which I could get for $100!

To which I did. I did some research and bought a HP. I can print to it in colour even if not full res. And can scan direct to an SD card sitting on my Workbench faster than dedicated scanner sofrware!

What else do we need?

Oh yes, common printer driver support.

[abalaban]

Hypex: can't it be that your USB printer is exposing some other interfaces (scanner?) that Andy's does not ? I don't have a single clue of what I'm saying but just trying to help finding the reason of your printer (mis)behavior...

My printer does expose a scanner but if my printer is turned off how does OS4 know that? Does usbprinter.device record all drives attached to the one printer and complain for each one misisng?

I don't know. On the other hand I don't see the relationship between Media ToolBox and usbprinter.device either
But I was asking about the scanner because (please bear in mind that I don't own such an USB printer nor did I ever tested one myself) maybe the USB MassStorage interface of your printer is still available even when the printer is turned off ??

*Or* there is something with latest usbprinter.device when a multi function printer is hooked on it and the USB printer settings is hard fixed in a file (I vaguely remember some reading I had from SYS:Documentation that one would be able to hard fix the device unit for a given printer using a text file but it's not very clear and can't check right now) making it lying in the memory even when the printer isn't turned on. This in the end may produce perturbation at MediaToolBox launch when it queries every opened device about their capabilities in order to display them in its startup requester: usbprinter.device might not be able to deal with the fact it's being queried while not USB printer is actually turned on. Just an hypothesis not backed up by any fact or knowledge I may have, take it like a rambling from a guy that does not really know what he's talking about but he's trying to help anyway

[Hypex]

I don't know. On the other hand I don't see the relationship between Media ToolBox and usbprinter.device either

I think what is happening is that programs which scan the device list for drives trigger it. I think it's related to NSD and querying a device to see if it is a drive. When a printer is off usbprinter.device can't be opened or no units exist so when it's queried as toits type it won't open and the systtem complains.

That's what I think causes it.

USB MassStorage interface of your printer is still available even when the printer is turned off ??

Well that's possible but when devices are taken out it does a good job of removing them. And ports are cleared on startup.

SYS:Documentation that one would be able to hard fix the device unit for a given printer

Was that the one specying the PCI ID of the printer?

Just an hypothesis not backed up by any fact or knowledge I may have, take it like a rambling from a guy that does not really know what he's talking about but he's trying to help anyway

Well I thankyou for your help and I agree with your hypothesis.

[xenic]

The problem still exists in Update3. Since I originally reported the problem on forums as soon as the current usbprinter.device was released, I sort of expected to see it fixed in Update3. It's just a minor glitch but too many minor glitches can add up to an unsatisfactory OS4 experience.