1672398 - Cannot choose A4 paper size

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1672370

(Core :: Printing: Setup, defect, P1)

Description

[Rog]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:81.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/81.0

Steps to reproduce:

Cannot choose paper size as A4.
Previously had to manually edit paper_data and change to 9. No longer can do this in the new version. Nothing seems to work.

Actual results:

Keeps on reverting back to Letter.

Expected results:

Shoudl stick to paper size as A4.

Comment 1

[David Lawrence [:dkl]]

This is not a security sensitive issue so removing security group.

Comment 2

[Jonathan Watt [:jwatt]]

[ Originally reported as https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1309513 ]

Thanks for re-reporting this issue here.

Can you open the page about:support, click the "Copy text to clipboard" button, come back to this bug, click the "Attach New File" button above, and paste and submit that troubleshooting information?

Comment 3

[Rog]

(In reply to Jonathan Watt [:jwatt] from comment #2)

[ Originally reported as https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1309513 ]

Thanks for re-reporting this issue here.

Can you open the page about:support, click the "Copy text to clipboard" button, come back to this bug, click the "Attach New File" button above, and paste and submit that troubleshooting information?

Hi, I am afraid I have had to downgrade to the previous version as spent quite some time trying to get it to work and had no luck. So presume a report cannot be sent.

I can see on the latest version the paper_data setting has been removed. Replaced with paper_id. But any setting in there did not work and the settings for all paper size would keep reverting to letter.

What should we put in paper_id?

Comment 4

[Jonathan Watt [:jwatt]]

(In reply to Rog from comment #3)

What should we put in paper_id?

The print_paper_id should be the correct one, and 9 should still be the value that you need for A4. The paper size names and their corresponding numeric ID can be found here:

https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/25d5a4443a7e13cfa58eff38f1faa5e69f0b170f/third_party/rust/winapi/src/um/wingdi.rs#1583-1700

There are a few caveats though:

• The pref must be a String pref, not an Integer pref.
• The pref name must contain the printer name as saved by Firefox.

To clarify the second point, I have to set print.printer_Brother_MFC-L8690CDW_series_Printer.print_paper_id for my printer (setting print.print_paper_id won't be enough).

Comment 5

[Jonathan Watt [:jwatt]]

For now I'm going to assume that both caveats above are not an issue for you, and it still keeps reverting to Letter.

We think it's very possible that the patch for bug 1672370 will fix this issue for you too, but we'd like to have some more information if possible to validate that so if that's not the case we can dig into this issue more. For that we would really like to have the about:support from a computer where printing is working for you on Firefox 81. (See comment 2 for the details on how to get this.)

Comment 6

[Jonathan Watt [:jwatt]]

Actually the about:support information from a non-working Firefox 82 would also be useful too, but the working 81 information is more urgent so we can get this fixed ASAP for you.

Comment 7

[Rog]

Okay thanks. That is what I done but it kept reverting back and choosing as letter.
I have attached the requested data from a version where it works. Thanks.

Comment 8

[Rog]

Attachment: about:support for 81 (no `print.` prefs)

Comment 9

[Jonathan Watt [:jwatt]]

(In reply to Rog from comment #7)

Okay thanks. That is what I done but it kept reverting back and choosing as letter.

Thanks for clarifying, and for the about:support data.

Unfortunately I forgot that we only started listing the printing preferences in about:support in Firefox 82, so the data you pasted from Firefox 81 doesn't show them. To get them for 81, in a working Firefox 81 would you be able to do the following:

• open about:support
• find "Profile Folder" on that page, and click the "Open Folder" button to the right
• open the file "prefs.js" (or just "prefs" if file extensions are hidden)
• copy all the lines that contain "print."
• come back to this bug
• click the "Attach New Attachment" button
• paste and submit those prefs

Apologies that's not so simple (hence why we've made it easier in v82).

Comment 10

[Rog]

Attachment: `print.` prefs missing from the 81 about:support

Comment 11

[Jonathan Watt [:jwatt]]

Thank you! So it looks like you've ended up with "-1" for the paper width and height for all your printers, which is weird. For the printers that you want to use A4, can you try this: search in about:config for:

• print_paper_size_unit and change the value to 1
• print_paper_width and change the value to "210.00"
• print_paper_height and change the value to "297.00"
• print_paper_id and change the value to 9

I think that should avoid the settings reverting after you print, but it would be good to know.

Also, can you clarify if it's all your printers that you encountered this problem with, or one in particular?

Comment 12

[Rog]

Thanks for the response.

It is all printers. I even removed a printer thinking it was that causing the issues and added it again. Renamed it and still an issue.

For the paper, unit, width and height. I also did change this to the sizes you mentioned but again it still reverted back and was not sticking to A4.

The reason for -1 is that it has always worked on previous versions of Firefox with this and believe I read that with this setting it uses the default size for that paper type.

I guess to find a solution and to get support I have to update to the latest FireFox again and provide the data?

Comment 13

[Jonathan Watt [:jwatt]]

I should say explicitly that all four of the settings mentioned in comment 11 need to be updated/set at the same time. If any one of those is not set/updated at the same time, then all four will end up being ignored (and reset). Can you just confirm that you did exactly that at some point in Firefox 82? I sounds like you did, but I just want to make sure we're not having a subtle miscommunication.

Non-positive numbers (zero and negative) have, it seems, been treated as special. It looks like that's what's broken indeed.

Regarding updating to the latest Firefox, that's currently Firefox 82.0 which I assume you're using right now to test the above steps. There's no more recent version until we can get the fix for bug 1672370 pushed out.

Comment 14

[Jonathan Watt [:jwatt]]

One other thing you could try is to apply the four changes mentioned in comment 11 but also set print.save_print_settings to false at the same time, then try to print. Hopefully that should prevent Firefox saving/resetting to the broken settings.

Comment 15

[Jonathan Watt [:jwatt]]

(In reply to Jonathan Watt [:jwatt] from comment #13)

Non-positive numbers (zero and negative) have, it seems, been treated as special. It looks like that's what's broken indeed.

For any other devs reading this, that's this code:

https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/25d5a4443a7e13cfa58eff38f1faa5e69f0b170f/widget/windows/nsPrintSettingsWin.cpp#433-439

The code that we believe is responsible for breaking things is this:

https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/25d5a4443a7e13cfa58eff38f1faa5e69f0b170f/widget/nsPrintSettingsService.cpp#339-354

Comment 16

[Rog]

Thanks.

Yes all were applied at once.

I have downgraded back to v81.

Should I just wait for the next version and see if the next fix will resolve this issue? Or try again now and provide a report for v82?

Comment 17

[Jonathan Watt [:jwatt]]

(In reply to Rog from comment #16)

Should I just wait for the next version and see if the next fix will resolve this issue? Or try again now and provide a report for v82?

I've been trying to figure out the answer to this since your answers above are actually making me sceptical that the patch for bug 1672370 will fix your issue. Could you try a Nightly build from https://nightly.mozilla.org/ and see whether that works for you? You can install that alongside Firefox and the two will not interfere with each other. Nightly has the fix from bug 1672370 already, so whether things work for you there or not will give us a clue as to whether Firefox 82.0.1 will also fix things for you, or whether we need to figure out a different fix.

Comment 18

[Jonathan Watt [:jwatt]]

In the similar sounding bug 1673012, the reporter found that deleting all the preferences for their printer fixed things for them. I wonder if that would also work for you. (Obviously you won't be able to set the width/height back to -1 until after we get the fix for bug 1672370 released in a Firefox update.)

Comment 19

[Mats Palmgren (inactive)]

I'd be happy to look into this if someone can figure out the steps to reproduce the problem.

Comment 20

[janet [:janet]]

Hi Rog - would you mind trying out the Firefox 82.0.1 release. We believe it may fix your issue.

Comment 21

[Rog]

Thanks. Yes this is now working after upgrading.

Comment 23

[janet [:janet]]

Rog - thank you for being so responsive and letting us know it works now. Happy printing!