Bug#382141: libgnomeprint2.2-0: Gets paper size wrong for remote CUPS printers

[John Winters]

Package: libgnomeprint2.2-0
Version: 2.12.1-6
Severity: important


I previously reported this as a problem in CUPS, but it seems to affect
only Gnome applications - hence reported here.

The current version of libgnomeprint in Etch doesn't seem to pick up the
paper size from CUPS printers on other CUPS servers.  Although the CUPS
server has them configured with A4 paper, remote workstations running
Etch always try to use them as if they had letter-sized paper.

I thought at first that this was a problem between different versions
of CUPS, as the main print server on our network is running Sarge and
CUPS version 1.1.23-10sarge.  Sarge workstations get the paper size
right but Etch workstations get it wrong.

However, I've now done some further tests and it seems to be a
fundamental problem with libgnomeprint accessing CUPS printers which
are not local to that machine.  If the CUPS printer is configured
in CUPS on the local machine then libgnomeprint gets the paper size
right, but if the printer is configured on a different CUPS server
and the local CUPS instance has learned about it automatically through
the CUPS mechanisms then the paper size gets lost and libgnomeprint
defaults to US-Letter instead of the configured paper size.

KDE applications on the other hand get the paper size right for both
local and remote CUPS printers, so it seems as the information is there
- just that libgnomeprint isn't picking it up.

I took two Etch workstations, each of which was getting the paper size
wrong for printers accessed on the main print server.  I attached a
printer to each of these workstations and configured them (through CUPS)
as local printers with A4 sized paper.  Attempting to print to either
printer on the workstation to which it is attached correctly brings up
A4 as the paper size.

However, I then changed the CUPS settings on each of the workstations to
make the new printers available to other machines on the network.  Each
workstation quickly added the other's printer to its list of
available printers, but attempting to print to them from a Gnome
application (e.g. Evince) always brings up "Letter" as the preferred paper
size, despite them both being set to A4.

This happens with all applications which use the Gnome print mechanism.

It's also noticeable that if you run gnome-cups-manager, it can display
attributes (like paper size) for local CUPS printers but just gives a
blank list for remote CUPS printers.  Presumably part of the same
problem.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.15-amtrak1
Locale: LANG=en_GB, LC_CTYPE=en_GB (charmap=ISO-8859-1) (ignored: LC_ALL set to en_GB)

Versions of packages libgnomeprint2.2-0 depends on:
ii  libart-2.0-2               2.3.17-1      Library of functions for 2D graphi
ii  libc6                      2.3.6-15      GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libcupsys2                 1.2.2-1       Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  libfontconfig1             2.3.2-7       generic font configuration library
ii  libfreetype6               2.2.1-2       FreeType 2 font engine, shared lib
ii  libglib2.0-0               2.10.3-3      The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnomecups1.0-1          0.2.2-5       GNOME library for CUPS interaction
ii  libgnomeprint2.2-data      2.12.1-6      The GNOME 2.2 print architecture -
ii  libgnutls13                1.4.1-1       the GNU TLS library - runtime libr
ii  libpango1.0-0              1.12.3-1+b1   Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpopt0                   1.10-2        lib for parsing cmdline parameters
ii  libxml2                    2.6.26.dfsg-3 GNOME XML library
ii  zlib1g                     1:1.2.3-13    compression library - runtime

Versions of packages libgnomeprint2.2-0 recommends:
ii  cupsys                        1.2.2-1    Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 

-- no debconf information