[Pkg-cups-devel] Bug#569580: printing fails with "/usr/lib/cups/filter/pstopdf failed"

[Gabor Nagy]

Package: cups
Version: 1.4.4-7
Severity: normal

I bought a new printer, installed the drivers, tried to print test page:

▼ ID ▼  Name    User    Size    Pages   State   Control
Epson_Stylus_SX425W-4   Test Page       root    1k      Unknown         
processing since
Mon Jan 31 18:20:46 2011 
"/usr/lib/cups/filter/pstopdf failed"

5 mins later:

▼ ID ▼  Name    User    Size    Pages   State

Epson_Stylus_SX425W-4   Test Page       root    1k      Unknown         stopped 
"/usr/lib/cups/filter/pstopdf failed"

Looking at the logs, I have spotted a message:
cat: write error: No space left on device

And yes, it was the problem for me. /var was 100% full. After cleaning up, printing works fine.

I think it would be a good idea to extend the pstopdf failed message with the
error message, for example: pstopdf failed (no space left on device) 

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 6.0
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-686 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages cups depends on:
ii  adduser                 3.112+nmu2       add and remove users and groups
ii  bc                      1.06.95-2        The GNU bc arbitrary precision cal
ii  cups-client             1.4.4-7          Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  cups-common             1.4.4-7          Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  cups-ppdc               1.4.4-7          Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]   1.5.36           Debian configuration management sy
ii  ghostscript             8.71~dfsg2-9     The GPL Ghostscript PostScript/PDF
ii  libavahi-client3        0.6.27-2         Avahi client library
ii  libavahi-common3        0.6.27-2         Avahi common library
ii  libc6                   2.11.2-10        Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  libcups2                1.4.4-7          Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  libcupscgi1             1.4.4-7          Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  libcupsdriver1          1.4.4-7          Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  libcupsimage2           1.4.4-7          Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  libcupsmime1            1.4.4-7          Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  libcupsppdc1            1.4.4-7          Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  libdbus-1-3             1.2.24-4         simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libgcc1                 1:4.4.5-8        GCC support library
ii  libgnutls26             2.8.6-1          the GNU TLS library - runtime libr
ii  libgssapi-krb5-2        1.8.3+dfsg-4     MIT Kerberos runtime libraries - k
ii  libijs-0.35             0.35-7           IJS raster image transport protoco
ii  libkrb5-3               1.8.3+dfsg-4     MIT Kerberos runtime libraries
ii  libldap-2.4-2           2.4.23-7         OpenLDAP libraries
ii  libpam0g                1.1.1-6.1        Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii  libpaper1               1.1.24           library for handling paper charact
ii  libpoppler5             0.12.4-1.2       PDF rendering library
ii  libslp1                 1.2.1-7.8        OpenSLP libraries
ii  libstdc++6              4.4.5-8          The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii  libusb-0.1-4            2:0.1.12-16      userspace USB programming library
ii  lsb-base                3.2-23.2squeeze1 Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip
ii  poppler-utils           0.12.4-1.2       PDF utilitites (based on libpopple
ii  procps                  1:3.2.8-9        /proc file system utilities
ii  ssl-cert                1.0.28           simple debconf wrapper for OpenSSL
ii  ttf-freefont            20090104-7       Freefont Serif, Sans and Mono True
ii  zlib1g                  1:1.2.3.4.dfsg-3 compression library - runtime

Versions of packages cups recommends:
ii  cups-driver-gutenprint      5.2.6-1      printer drivers for CUPS
ii  foomatic-filters            4.0.5-6      OpenPrinting printer support - fil
ii  ghostscript-cups            8.71~dfsg2-9 The GPL Ghostscript PostScript/PDF

Versions of packages cups suggests:
ii  cups-bsd                      1.4.4-7    Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
pn  cups-pdf                      <none>     (no description available)
ii  foomatic-db                   20100630-1 OpenPrinting printer support - dat
pn  hplip                         <none>     (no description available)
pn  smbclient                     <none>     (no description available)
ii  udev                          164-3      /dev/ and hotplug management daemo
pn  xpdf-korean | xpdf-japanese | <none>     (no description available)

-- debconf information:
  cupsys/raw-print: true
  cupsys/backend: ipp, lpd, parallel, scsi, serial, socket, usb, snmp, dnssd