Fedora Users — OpenOffice, system-config-printer and cups browsing bug

Hi all,

I've finally understood the origin of my OO.o problems. I document below the bug and my workaround. I hope this gets fixed soon so others don't struggle with it as well.

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OO Problem understood
---------------------

OO.o in Fedora2 runs behind the scenes system-config-printer in a mode which
browses the network and auto-detects printers and adds them to the list of
CUPS printers.  In my system, it is adding a printer which when configured
normally works correctly, but for some reason in this case it just hangs.

I think it is adding this printer as a queued printer from a remote server,
when it shouldn't: it adds braque@eady (printer@server).  This server may
somehow be refusing connections.  When I've manually configured cups, I always
add this printer on its own (it is a network printer), and it works fine.

Here is the relevant part of 'strace oowriter':

open("/lib/libnss_dns.so.2", O_RDONLY) = 28 read(28, "\177ELF\1\1\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\3\0\3\0\1\0\0\0\360\f\0"..., 512) = 512 fstat64(28, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0755, st_size=22172, ...}) = 0 old_mmap(NULL, 16516, PROT_READ|PROT_EXEC, MAP_PRIVATE, 28, 0) = 0x1c83000 old_mmap(0x1c86000, 8192, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_FIXED, 28, 0x3000) = 0x1c86000 close(28) = 0 mprotect(0x1c86000, 4096, PROT_READ) = 0 munmap(0x2a84a000, 103889) = 0 socket(PF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, IPPROTO_IP) = 28 connect(28, {sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(53), sin_addr=inet_addr("128.138.240.1")}, 28) = 0 send(28, "\320L\1\0\0\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\4eady\10colorado\3edu\0\0"..., 35, 0) = 35 gettimeofday({1086381998, 726854}, NULL) = 0 poll([{fd=28, events=POLLIN, revents=POLLIN}], 1, 5000) = 1 ioctl(28, FIONREAD, [213]) = 0 recvfrom(28, "\320L\205\200\0\1\0\1\0\4\0\4\4eady\10colorado\3edu\0\0"..., 1024, 0, {sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(53), sin_addr=inet_addr("128.138.240.1")}, [16]) = 213 close(28) = 0 time(NULL) = 1086381998 socket(PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_IP) = 28 fcntl64(28, F_SETFD, FD_CLOEXEC) = 0 setsockopt(28, SOL_SOCKET, SO_REUSEADDR, [1], 4) = 0 setsockopt(28, SOL_TCP, TCP_NODELAY, [1], 4) = 0 connect(28, {sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(631), sin_addr=inet_addr("128.138.249.230")}, 16) = 0 getuid32() = 33212 gettimeofday({1086381998, 731126}, NULL) = 0 open("/var/tmp/40c0dfaeb27f6", O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_EXCL, 0600) = 29 send(28, "GET /printers/braque.ppd HTTP/1."..., 35, 0) = 35 send(28, "Host: eady.colorado.edu\r\n", 25, 0) = 25 send(28, "\r\n", 2, 0) = 2 recv(28, "HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\nDate: Fri, 04 J"..., 2048, 0) = 72 time(NULL) = 1086381998 time(NULL) = 1086381998 time(NULL) = 1086381998 recv(28, "Connection: Keep-Alive\r\nKeep-Ali"..., 2048, 0) = 2048 time(NULL) = 1086381998 time(NULL) = 1086381998 time(NULL) = 1086381998 time(NULL) = 1086381998 time(NULL) = 1086381998 write(29, "Content-Type: text/plain; charse"..., 1978) = 1978 time(NULL) = 1086381998 recv(28, "gBBox null>>setpagedevice\"\n*Page"..., 8192, 0) = 3683 write(29, "gBBox null>>setpagedevice\"\n*Page"..., 3683) = 3683 time(NULL) = 1086381998 recv(28, " Feed of Paper: PickOne\n*OrderDe"..., 8192, 0) = 8192 write(29, " Feed of Paper: PickOne\n*OrderDe"..., 8192) = 8192 time(NULL) = 1086381998 recv(28, "149: \"%% FoomaticOpt: Copies=149"..., 8192, 0) = 4696 write(29, "149: \"%% FoomaticOpt: Copies=149"..., 4696) = 4696 time(NULL) = 1086381998 recv(28, " \"%% FoomaticOpt: Copies=251\"\n*C"..., 8192, 0) = 6144 write(29, " \"%% FoomaticOpt: Copies=251\"\n*C"..., 6144) = 6144 time(NULL) = 1086381998 recv(28, "84\"\n*Copies 385/385: \"%% Foomati"..., 8192, 0) = 8192 write(29, "84\"\n*Copies 385/385: \"%% Foomati"..., 8192) = 8192 time(NULL) = 1086381998 recv(28, "*Copies 563/563: \"%% FoomaticOpt"..., 8192, 0) = 8192 write(29, "*Copies 563/563: \"%% FoomaticOpt"..., 8192) = 8192 time(NULL) = 1086381998 recv(28, "ies 741/741: \"%% FoomaticOpt: Co"..., 8192, 0) = 8192 write(29, "ies 741/741: \"%% FoomaticOpt: Co"..., 8192) = 8192 time(NULL) = 1086381998 recv(28, "919/919: \"%% FoomaticOpt: Copies"..., 8192, 0) = 8192 write(29, "919/919: \"%% FoomaticOpt: Copies"..., 8192) = 8192 time(NULL) = 1086381998 recv(28, " \'type\' => \'P\',\n*% COMDATA # \'"..., 8192, 0) = 7592 write(29, " \'type\' => \'P\',\n*% COMDATA # \'"..., 7592) = 7592 time(NULL) = 1086381998 recv(28, "</Duplex true /Tumble true>>setp"..., 8192, 0) = 7240 write(29, "</Duplex true /Tumble true>>setp"..., 7240) = 7240 time(NULL) = 1086381998 recv(28, " \'vals\' => [\n*% COMDATA # "..., 8192, 0) = 7944 write(29, " \'vals\' => [\n*% COMDATA # "..., 7944) = 7944 time(NULL) = 1086381998 recv(28, "->{\'args\'}[0]{\'vals\'}[3];\n*% COM"..., 8192, 0) = 4725 write(29, "->{\'args\'}[0]{\'vals\'}[3];\n*% COM"..., 4725) = 4725 time(NULL) = 1086381998 recv(28,

At this point it just hangs forever.

Workaround
----------

1. Run cupsdconf, go to browsing (bottom of left column of options)
and disable browsing altogether.

2. Manually delete the offending printer from cups (the easiest is to use the web cups admin: http://localhost:631/printers).

3. Restart Cups: 'service cups restart'

After this, OO will run fine.

Thoughts
--------

This is definitely new buggy behavior which did not exist in Fedora1. Even if there is the good intention of automatically discovering printers for the user, the system should be far more robust in the face of whatever is failing here. Having a dead, hung OpenOffice is not exactly 'user friendly'.

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Cheers,