Having trouble printing to my HP OJ Pro 8600 all-in-one

[Ben Woods]

On 23 November 2016 at 14:58, Patrick Mahan <mahan at mahan.org> wrote:

> On 11/22/16 9:06 PM, Ben Woods wrote:
> >> On 23 November 2016 at 12:22, Patrick Mahan <mahan at mahan.org>
> >> <mailto:mahan at mahan.org>> wrote:
> >>
> >>     All,
> >>
> >>     System info:
> >>
> >>         CPU: Intel I7 w/8 cpus @ 3.20 GHz
> >>         MEM: 12 Gbytes
> >>         HDD: 1 TB Seagate Barracuda (FreeBSD is on a 500G partition)
> >>         OS: FreeBSD 9.3-RELEASE-p21
> >>
> >>     I just update my binary packages (after much much pain) since they
> were
> >>     so out of date.  One of the items that seemed to drastically was
> CUPS.
> >>     I had CUPS-2.0.1 and now have CUPS-2.2.1, but it seems I have lost
> all
> >>     printing ability.  I re-installed all available cups packages
> (except client,
> >>     can't see where that exists) along with gutenprint and hplip.  I
> see on
> >>     the ports page that there a secondary package called hplip-plugins
> but
> >>     pkg will not install it as it says it cannot find any package
> matching
> >>     that name.
> >>
> >>     Cups sees the printer, it seems up, but when I attempt to print a
> test
> >>     page, I get the following error:
> >>
> >>        Unable to print test page:
> >>
> >>               Unsupported format "text/plain".
> >>
> >>     Looking in /usr/local/etc/cups and I don't see any definition for
> >>     "text/plain".  Also, the cups filter in the .ppd for the printer
> >>     is set to "application/vnd.cups-raster 0 hpcups", but I can find
> >>     no definition of vnd.cups-raster nor hpcups.
> >>
> >>     Tried googling and most of the solutions are targeted for Linux
> >>     platforms and are packages that I no longer see in the ports tree.
> >>
> >>     Any pointers, suggestions, how to's are appreciated.  This has been
> >>     the main print server in my office and a couple of colleagues with
> >>     Apple devices (iPads, iPhones and Macbooks) depend on it for
> printing.
> >>
> >>     Thanks,
> >>
> >>     Patrick
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> > On 22 November 2016, Ben Woods <woodsb02 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What make/model of printer do you have? Is it supported with or without
> the
> > plugin (check at link below):
> > http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/supported_devices/index.html
> >
>
> Yep, it's supported.  I forgot to mention it earlier, but it is a
> HP OfficeJet Pro 8600 aio.
>
> >
> > Have you tried removing the printer from the config, and re-adding it?
> >
>
> I've been hesitant to do so as I also support the AirPrint via the avahi
> daemon
> and I was hoping not to mess with any of that, but if I gotta, I gotta.
>
> > hplip-plugin is not available as a package because of license
> restrictions. It
> > can be installed from ports (make sure the hplip-plugin ports version
> matches the
> > hplip package version).
> > http://www.freshports.org/print/hplip-plugin
> > http://hplipopensource.com/node/309
> >
> > Don't follow the instructions on how to install the plugin from the hplip
> > website, just install it from ports if required.
> >
>
> Ah that explains it, maybe the description could be updated to include this
> tidbit of information.  I just update the ports tree, so I'll go build it
> there.
>
> > Regards,
> > Ben
>
> Thanks for the help,
>
> Patrick
>
>
Hi Patrick,

According to that hplip website the OfficeJet pro 8600 doesn't require the
plugin to work:
"Driver plug-in:  None   See note8
<http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/models/officejet/officejet_pro_8600.html#note8>
."

The 8600 is one of the models of printer which used to come with a PPD
driver in the print/hplip package, however it no longer does. Instead the
PPD driver is dynamically generated at the time the printer is added (hence
me recommending removing and then re-adding the printer).

See the details in the bug report below where another user has a similar
problem with the same printer:
https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=214686

Regards,
Ben

--
From: Benjamin Woods
woodsb02 at gmail.com