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Can't seem to get a printer working with my brand new 64-bit Ubuntu laptop.

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 15.04
Release:    15.04
Codename:   vivid

I see the printer, and everything looks fine, but then when I try to print a test page, the job enters a "held" state.

lpq shows all the print jobs as usual. When I go to localhost:631 and check out the printer, I see the following message next to the job:

held since
Sun 20 Sep 2015 09:23:51 AM EDT 
"cannot load library"

Of course, it does not show which library is failing to load, because that would be a useful error message. The driver looks like the right one. Here's a cut-and paste of the printer description at the top of the screen:

Description:    Canon MP560
Location:   
Driver: Canon MP560 series - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.10 (color, 2-sided printing)
Connection: cnijnet:/00-1E-8F-51-42-36
Defaults:   job-sheets=none, none media=na_letter_8.5x11in sides=one-sided

I think this might be a 32-bit vs. 64-bit issue. I installed the drivers from Canon Asia, as per Install Canon MP560 Ubuntu 15.04. Prior to the dpkg command, I ran 

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386  
sudo apt-get update

Then I installed the packages, common first, then MP560. There were problems when I ran sudo apt-get update, so I fixed them with a sudo apt-get -f install.

That seemed to get everything working, but, as mentioned above, it just won't print. Running sudo apt-get update shows no broken dependencies.

Ideas, anyone? I'm soooooooo close to getting this to work that I just can't give up.

In /var/log/cups/error_log.1, I see a lot of these ...

D [20/Sep/2015:10:02:51 -0400] [Job 13] Gutenprint: Reading 15300 6533
D [20/Sep/2015:10:02:51 -0400] [Job 13] Printing page 1, 99%
D [20/Sep/2015:10:02:51 -0400] [Job 13] ATTR: job-media-progress=99
D [20/Sep/2015:10:02:51 -0400] [Job 13] Gutenprint: Reading 15300 6535

and then problems like this ...

E [19/Sep/2015:12:39:43 -0400] [Job 2] cannot load library

There is a lot of stuff in that log. Not sure what's really important. The last few lines of the file are

D [20/Sep/2015:10:02:51 -0400] [Job 13] PID 2689 (/usr/lib/cups/backend/cnijnet) stopped with status 1.
D [20/Sep/2015:10:02:51 -0400] [Job 13] Hint: Try setting the LogLevel to "debug" to find out more.
D [20/Sep/2015:10:02:51 -0400] [Job 13] Backend returned status 1 (failed)
D [20/Sep/2015:10:02:51 -0400] [Job 13] time-at-completed=1442757771
D [20/Sep/2015:10:02:51 -0400] [Job 13] End of messages
D [20/Sep/2015:10:02:51 -0400] [Job 13] printer-state=3(idle)
D [20/Sep/2015:10:02:51 -0400] [Job 13] printer-state-message="Rendering completed"
D [20/Sep/2015:10:02:51 -0400] [Job 13] printer-state-reasons=none
Community
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BryanR
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3 Answers3

1

From the instructions of post #10 of this ubuntu forum thread:

  1. download the driver from canon-asia.com
  2. unpack the archive with archive manager

  3. use the following commands to install:

    sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture cnijfilter-common_3.20-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture cnijfilter-mp560series_3.20-1_i386.deb

These are pretty much the same instructions as the one over here.

These are the 32bit drivers. You need to use the --force optionn to install on a 64 bit system. The rest of the aforementioned forum, covers the scanner driver.

user23573
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  • The --force-architecture flag definitely seems like it may be the key to getting the right library in place. How do I handle the fact that tibtiff4 has gone away? I tried (naively) making a symlink to libitff5 in /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/, but that didn't work. – BryanR Sep 21 '15 at 20:36
  • I figured out the libtiff4 issue. See my answer below for details. Thanks. – BryanR Sep 21 '15 at 22:46
1

OK, I think I got it.

As Bogdan Willi correctly pointed out---thanks, BTW---my lack of the --force-architecture flag on the dpkg command pushed me into 32 bit / 64 purgatory.

By using the flag, I got an error message that the MP560 driver depends on libtiff4, which, helpfully, is no longer available.

I managed to find an old copy of this package ...

wget http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/t/tiff3/libtiff4_3.9.6-9ubuntu1.2_i386.deb

And I installed it ...

sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture libtiff4_3.9.6-9ubuntu1.2_i386.deb
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Et voila! The printer prints. I suspect that the mysterious "Unable to load library" messages were due to libtiff4. A better error message would have been great.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for helping out. It can be tough to figure out these issues without the exact hardware.

BryanR
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0

Mostly as above but on Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS on my machine I needed the amd-64 version of libtiff4

wget http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/t/tiff3/libtiff4_3.9.7-2ubuntu1_amd64.deb

sudo dpkg -i ./libtiff4_3.9.7-2ubuntu1_amd64.deb

wget http://gdlp01.c-wss.com/gds/2/0100004692/01/cnijfilter-mg6300series-3.80-1-deb.tar.gz

tar -xf ./cnijfilter-mg6300series-3.80-1-deb.tar.gz
sudo ./install.sh

One note, if you are on a different network it won't find the printer. I work in a VM that is on its own network. I had to run the above on a computer connected to the correct network. Then I copied the lpadmin command that it used to register the printer and ran that on my VM.

JDG
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