1673248 - PDF prints boxes where there is a space on macOS with Canon printer

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Core :: Printing: Output, defect, P2)

Description

[Vicky Chin [:vchin]]

Attachment: IMG_1817.JPG

STR:

1. Navigate to https://www.massageaddict.ca/images/MassageAddictHealthHistoryForm.pdf
2. Print out the form (2nd page only is fine)

Output:
Boxes print where there is a space in the form making the printout hard to read (see attachment)

Printer: Canon ImageClass MF4880DW
Firefox Nightly 83.0a1 (2020-10-18) (64-bit)

Comment 1

[Sean Voisen (:svoisen)]

This works for me on macOS using Nightly 84 with my local printer (HP).

Vicky: Would you be able to try this with the system dialog (old UI)?

jfkthame: Font encoding issue?

Comment 2

[Jonathan Kew [:jfkthame]]

(In reply to Sean Voisen (:svoisen) from comment #1)

This works for me on macOS using Nightly 84 with my local printer (HP).

Vicky: Would you be able to try this with the system dialog (old UI)?

jfkthame: Font encoding issue?

Presumably there's something odd about the embedded fonts in the PDF, such that the space character is not handled properly but maps to the .notdef glyph instead. But I don't know specifically what the issue is, or whether we can somehow avoid/work around it. Maybe extracting the embedded font resources will reveal a clue...

Vicky: which platform are you on? Can you try other platforms and see if the problem is consistent? Do you have access to any other printers to try? Given that it doesn't reproduce for Sean, I'm curious if this is dependent on the platform where Firefox is running, the printer driver, or some specific combination.

Comment 3

[Jonathan Kew [:jfkthame]]

Also, is this a regression or does the same problem occur with older versions of Firefox?

Comment 4

[Vicky Chin [:vchin]]

(In reply to Sean Voisen (:svoisen) from comment #1)

This works for me on macOS using Nightly 84 with my local printer (HP).

Vicky: Would you be able to try this with the system dialog (old UI)?

jfkthame: Font encoding issue?

Upgraded to 84.0a1 (2020-10-26) (64-bit) on MacOS and still have the same problem with the old UI.

Interestingly, same Nightly build on Windows 10 on the same printer using the new Print UI and it prints as expected.

So this looks like a MacOS specific problem (with Canon printers?)

Comment 5

[Jonathan Kew [:jfkthame]]

It would be interesting to know if this happens with a significantly older version of Firefox (e.g. 68esr), or if it's somehow related to the recent printing changes. If it's a regression, finding the range with mozregression would be really helpful.

Comment 6

[Vlad Lucaci, Thunderbird QA (:vlucaci)]

Hello,

We have tried to reproduce this issue with our available hardware and we were unable to. We have used the following configurations:

• FF from 10.18.2020 with macOS 10.15.7 , Ubuntu 20.04 and Windows 10x64 (Phaser 3020 and HP MFP M28a)
• FF from 10.25.2020 with macOS 10.15.7 , Ubuntu 20.04 and Windows 10x64 (Phaser 3020 and HP MFP M28a)
• Latest Nightly 84.0a1(20201027212052) macOS 10.15.7 , Ubuntu 20.04 and Windows 10x64 (Phaser 3020 and HP MFP M28a)

It does seem that this could be a macOS specific problem with Canon printers.

Picture of paper output with latest nightly 84: https://drive.google.com/file/d/195F-NrblUQo8Bxa7oY-Mw8vycF5rNdTf/view?usp=sharing

Comment 7

[Jonathan Watt [:jwatt]]

We have other things we should fix first, so I'm going to drop this to P2.

Comment 8

[Andrei Purice]

Hey Vicky,
Can you still reproduce this issue or should we close it?

Comment 9

[Andrei Purice]

Marking this as Resolved > Incomplete as per reporter's lack of response.
If anyone can still reproduce this issue re-open it or file a new bug.