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Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,577  

CUPS 2.4.2 - Daedalus - "Filter failed" error

Hello:

After upgrading to Daedalus, I came across a severe problem with CUPS 2.4.2.
When I tried to print something, it failed with this output in dmesg:

--- snip ---
~$ sudo dmesg
usb 5-1: new high-speed USB device number 10 using ehci-pci
usb 5-1: New USB device found, idVendor=04e8, idProduct=3321, 
bcdDevice= 1.00
[usb 5-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
usb 5-1: Product: M2020 Series
usb 5-1: Manufacturer: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
usb 5-1: SerialNumber: 0731B8GJBB029TD
usblp 5-1:1.0: usblp1: USB Bidirectional printer dev 10 if 0 alt 0 
proto 2 vid 0x04E8 pid 0x3321
usblp1: removed       # last line
~$

The last line appears after sending the file to print.
The printer (Samsung M2020W USB) was correctly detected at boot time:

~$ sudo dmesg
--- snip ---
[    6.482475] usb 7-1: New USB device found, idVendor=04e8, 
idProduct=3321, bcdDevice= 1.00
[    6.491763] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.2: detected 2 ports
[    6.500910] usb 7-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, 
SerialNumber=3
[    6.500913] usb 7-1: Product: M2020 Series
[    6.500914] usb 7-1: Manufacturer: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
[    6.500916] usb 7-1: SerialNumber: 0731B8GJBB029TD
--- snip ---
~$

The CUPS UI informed "Filter failed".

The problem (solution found here) is caused by a missing package: libcupsimage2, which for some reason is not listed as a dependency for CUPS (!)

~$ aptitude why libcupsimage2
i   cups                 Suggests   foomatic-db-compressed-ppds | foomatic-db
p   foomatic-db          Recommends printer-driver-all                       
p   printer-driver-all   Recommends printer-driver-splix                     
p   printer-driver-splix Depends    libcupsimage2 (>= 1.4.0)                 
~$ 

Installing the libcupsimage2 instantly solved the problem.

Best.

A.

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,577  

Re: CUPS 2.4.2 - Daedalus - "Filter failed" error

Hello:

Installing the libcupsimage2 instantly solved the problem.

I see that the CUPS package is maintained by the 'Debian Printing Team'.

This issue with (what seems to be) a dependency problem with libcupsimage2 ...
Who would have to take care of it? ie: CUPS, Debian, Devuan?

My uneducated guess would be that package dependencies are something that involves the developers.
ie: the list of dependencies is generated somewhere along the line and added to the source code so that when the package is compiled and 'made' by maintainers, the binary will install them all with the proper versions.
ie: maintainers would not add dependencies on their own.

Is this correct?
If not, who would have to take care of the problem with libcupsimage2?

~$ aptitude why libcupsimage2
i   cups                 Suggests   foomatic-db-compressed-ppds | foomatic-db
p   foomatic-db          Recommends printer-driver-all                       
p   printer-driver-all   Recommends printer-driver-splix                     
p   printer-driver-splix Depends    libcupsimage2 (>= 1.4.0)                 
~$ 

From what I can make of the above aptitude printout, cups suggests foomatic-db / foomatic-db-compressed-ppds which in turn recommends printer-driver-all.

In turn, printer-driver-all recommends printer-driver-splix but this last package depends on libcupsimage2.

Now, my system does not have the suggested packages foomatic-db-compressed-ppds / foomatic-db installed because I do not install suggested packages because of their suggested nature.
ie: they are not dependencies.

But this being so ended screwing up my printing because the cups-filters package will fail if the libcupsimage2 is not installed.

It seems that cups-filters depends on libcupsimage2 being present to work properly.
But there is no mention of that here.

I'd appreciate some input on this.

Thanks in advance.

Best,

A.