Since Thunderbird update to 78.4.0 a couple of days ago, anything I try to print through it has all the text highlighted in black
Categories
(MailNews Core :: Printing, defect)
Tracking
(Not tracked)
People
(Reporter: persephone1, Assigned: aleca)
Details
(Keywords: testcase-wanted, Whiteboard: [support])
Attachments
(9 files)
image.png
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:82.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/82.0
Steps to reproduce:
Everything I try to print has black highlight text.
- I tried resetting the printer (Dell MFP 515dw) via USB cable. Windows 10 pro 64 (up to date as of this week). No effect.
Deleted and re-installed print drivers for this printer. No effect.
Note that printing via other apps on this machine (Word, Acrobat, etc) works fine. This seems to be a specific issue with Thunderbird printing.
Actual results:
No changes. Everything I try to print has black highlight text.
Expected results:
Fixed the issue??
Note: Current version of Thunderbird is 78.4.0
Screen shot of a receipt from Godaddy I am trying to print for my records.
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Comment 2•5 years ago
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Are you using the default theme in Thunderbird?
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Comment 4•5 years ago
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(In reply to Rowen from comment #3)
Yes. As far as I can tell.
You can tell by going to Add-ons > Themes and seeing which one is enabled.
Are you using the Dark app mode on Windows?
You can tell by going to Settings > Personalization > Colors.
Default mode is enabled in Thunderbird.
Windows dark mode is on.
I've been using these settings for a while now. Everything worked fine until the new update.
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Comment 6•5 years ago
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So on Windows you have Settings > Personalization > Colors set to Dark for the default Windows mode and the default app mode?
I set my Win10 laptop up with those settings, Default Thunderbird theme, picked a few different emails and could not reproduce.
Does it look like that in Print Preview?
Could you try in safe mode using Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled?
- Yes to dark colors default windows and default app mode.
- Yes it looks like this in print preview.
- It does not matter which email I try to print. All of the emails show up with the black highlighting in print preview and on printout.
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Comment 9•5 years ago
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(In reply to Rowen from comment #7)
- Yes to dark colors default windows and default app mode.
- Yes it looks like this in print preview.
- It does not matter which email I try to print. All of the emails show up with the black highlighting in print preview and on printout.
Thanks for that information.
I set Windows Settings > Colors to dark for the "Choose your color", Windows and app modes.
Selected many different messages and still can not reproduce.
Are there any other changes in those settings like transparency on or off, an accent color selected, and what accent features are enabled?
Mine are Transparency on, Storm Windows color and show accent color on Title bars and windows borders.
Do you get the same result if you use Print Preview or Print this bug report in your browser?
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Comment 10•5 years ago
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Choose your color is set to Dark
Transparency is On
Accent features are enabled for Start, Taskbar and Action Center but not Title Bars and Window Borders
Print preview and Print work fine in my browser (I'm using Firefox but I tested this in Chrome, too).
This issue is solely related to Thunderbird as far as I can tell.
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Comment 11•5 years ago
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Comment 12•5 years ago
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Well, I can't reproduce and this is the only report.
Anje,
Have you seen this in any support posts?
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Comment 13•5 years ago
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Not been ignoring this bug. I've been trying to reproduce this to no avail.
I did wonder if the user had been using at some point, the 'Printing Tools' addon as it claims - Highlight quoted text color, font and size - not tried this myself so not sure of the effects. User may not be using now but a preference could be still lurking.
Not seen in any support forum questions so far.
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Reporter | |
Comment 14•5 years ago
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As far as I can tell, I have not printing tool addons applied.
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Comment 15•5 years ago
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I did a test that I probably should have done a while ago.
I forwarded two emails that were not printing correctly in Thunderbird to my gmail account.
Logged into the gmail account (same computer, os, printer, etc etc) and printed these two emails out.
Both printed fine from gmail.
Whatever the issue is, it's definitely in Thunderbird.
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Comment 16•5 years ago
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I am running into this same error in arch linux running Thunderbird 84.0b2 build 20201123211438 - Print > Preview shows some of the text highlighted in black as if redacted - and won't print, and similarly trying directly to Print either to a printer or to a file won't print and just gives no output. Printing from other applications on the same machine works fine.
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Comment 17•5 years ago
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(In reply to Mike Cloaked from comment #16)
I am running into this same error in arch linux running Thunderbird 84.0b2 build 20201123211438 - Print > Preview shows some of the text highlighted in black as if redacted - and won't print, and similarly trying directly to Print either to a printer or to a file won't print and just gives no output. Printing from other applications on the same machine works fine.
Still can't reproduce using the 84.0b2 release on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and I selected many messages to preview. Also have a dozen new PDF files on my desktop testing printing to a file.
Looks to me like a test case is needed.
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Comment 18•5 years ago
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Comment 19•5 years ago
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Comment 20•5 years ago
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I have attached two screenshots of print preview of random emails - all mails give at least the top section blacked out and others virtually all blacked out as in the second example.
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Comment 21•5 years ago
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Mike - Yep. You're having the same issue I am!
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Comment 22•5 years ago
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(In reply to Mike Cloaked from comment #20)
I have attached two screenshots of print preview of random emails - all mails give at least the top section blacked out and others virtually all blacked out as in the second example.
Well, I for one don't have a dark themed print preview window when I am testing, so I changed my operating systems theme to Adwaita-dark and Thunderbird theme to Default. Now Print Preview is dark, but I still can't find an email that reproduces the issue.
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Comment 23•5 years ago
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If it is any help in Thunderbird under Themes I have 'enabled' default set. In the Plasma Desktop my settings are:
Global theme: Breeze
Plasma Style: Breeze Dark
Application Style: Breeze
Window decorations: Breeze
Colours: Breeze dark
Icons: Breeze dark
Cursors: Breeze
Gnome/GTK application style: GTK theme - Breeze
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Comment 24•5 years ago
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Also the version of kwin is kwin 5.20.3-2 and plasma-desktop version is 5.20.3-1 which is the latest in arch linux. I don't know if differences in the DE versions may have any impact on this, as well as the xorg version: which for latest arch linux is xorg-server 1.20.9.r21.g5c400cae1-2
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Comment 25•5 years ago
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So two customized operating themes one for Windows 10 and one for Arch Linux, both using the Thunderbird Default theme.
I still think we need a test case email attached to this bug report.
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Comment 26•5 years ago
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Here is a mail in eml format that is small but still gives a blacked out top section in print preview on all my systems running arch as per the description in my comments in this bug report. You can upload and test in your system.
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Comment 27•5 years ago
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For my own system note that I am running 84.0b2 and not the 78.4.0 in the title of this report by the OP.
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Comment 28•5 years ago
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Tested the provided EML file on Windows 10 Tbv78.5.0 using default dark theme - no problems. All looks good.
Suggested test:
In Options/Preferences > General > Network & Disk Space section - Clear cache.
Exit Thunderbird
Access profile
As a backup, Copy the 'prefs.js' file to desktop - just in case of error
Open 'prefs.js' using text editor program
Delete all lines that start with ......user_pref("print.
Save file
Ensure printer is all ready
Start Thunderbird
Right click on email and select 'Print Preview'
Please Report on results.
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Comment 29•5 years ago
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(In reply to Mike Cloaked from comment #27)
For my own system note that I am running 84.0b2 and not the 78.4.0 in the title of this report by the OP.
Thanks for the test case.
Tested the email provided using Thunderbird 84.0b2 on Ubuntu using the Default, Light and Dark Thunderbird themes, used Tweaks to change operating system themes and tried Adwaita-dark, Ambiance, HighContrast, HighContrastInverse and the Radiance themes with each different Thunderbird theme and could not reproduce.
Also, can't reproduce using 78.5.0 with the same procedure.
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Comment 30•5 years ago
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I tried the suggested test by Anje - edited the prefs.js file to remove all the lines with user_pref("print, and then restarted Thunderbird 84.0b2 - the result was the same for Print Preview with blacked out lines. After that I then grepped the prefs.js file and it had put new lines in with print as follows:
$ grep print .thunderbird/home2015.profile/prefs.js
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_bgcolor", false);
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_bgimages", false);
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_duplex", 0);
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_edge_bottom", 0);
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_edge_left", 0);
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_edge_right", 0);
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_edge_top", 0);
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_footercenter", "");
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_footerleft", "&PT");
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_footerright", "&D");
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_headercenter", "");
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_headerleft", "&T");
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_headerright", "&U");
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_in_color", true);
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_margin_bottom", "0.5");
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_margin_left", "0.5");
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_margin_right", "0.5");
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_margin_top", "0.5");
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_orientation", 0);
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_page_delay", 50);
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_paper_height", "11.6929");
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_paper_id", "iso_a4");
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_paper_size_unit", 0);
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_paper_width", "8.26772");
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_reversed", false);
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_scaling", "1");
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_shrink_to_fit", true);
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_to_file", false);
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_to_filename", "/home/mike/mozilla.pdf");
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_unwriteable_margin_bottom", 0);
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_unwriteable_margin_left", 0);
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_unwriteable_margin_right", 0);
user_pref("print.printer_HP_Laserjet.print_unwriteable_margin_top", 0);
user_pref("print_printer", "HP_Laserjet");
So that didn't make any difference on my system. The issue persists. Is it possible that this is manifest with more recent versions of kwin/xorg and which version of those were being used with other tests where the problem was not being seen? For Walt548's tests in Ubuntu, which version of kwin/plasma/xorg were used - and were they different or earlier to those I quoted in comment #24 ?
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Comment 31•5 years ago
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I also logged in to my mail account on a web browser, and printed an email - which was fine in print preview, and it, printed on the printer without any problems, and with no blacked out lines - so the printer has full, and normal, functionality, and it is only on Thunderbird where this problem occurs with printing.
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Comment 32•5 years ago
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For completeness I also grepped the old prefs.js file for print, prior to removing the print lines, and the old file had:
$ grep print prefs.js
user_pref("print.print_bgcolor", false);
user_pref("print.print_bgimages", false);
user_pref("print.print_duplex", 0);
user_pref("print.print_evenpages", true);
user_pref("print.print_margin_bottom", "0.5");
user_pref("print.print_margin_left", "0.5");
user_pref("print.print_margin_right", "0.5");
user_pref("print.print_margin_top", "0.5");
user_pref("print.print_oddpages", true);
user_pref("print.print_orientation", 0);
user_pref("print.print_page_delay", 50);
user_pref("print.print_paper_data", 0);
user_pref("print.print_paper_height", " 11.69");
user_pref("print.print_paper_name", "iso_a4");
user_pref("print.print_paper_size_unit", 0);
user_pref("print.print_paper_width", " 8.27");
user_pref("print.print_resolution", 600);
user_pref("print.print_scaling", " 1.00");
user_pref("print.print_shrink_to_fit", true);
user_pref("print.print_to_file", false);
user_pref("print.print_to_filename", "/home/mike/mozilla.pdf");
user_pref("print.print_unwriteable_margin_bottom", 56);
user_pref("print.print_unwriteable_margin_left", 25);
user_pref("print.print_unwriteable_margin_right", 25);
user_pref("print.print_unwriteable_margin_top", 25);
user_pref("print_printer", "SCX-4500W-Series");
The blacked out lines in Print Preview were the same irrespective of whether the old or the new prefs.js file was in use.
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Comment 33•5 years ago
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When you select 'Print Preview' - then select 'Page Setup'
'Format & Options' tab
Under 'Options' section:
If this is selected, then uncheck that option: 'Print background (colours & images)'
Please report on results.
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Comment 34•5 years ago
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(In reply to Mike Cloaked from comment #30)
Is it possible that this is manifest with more recent versions of kwin/xorg and which version of those were being used with other tests where the problem was not being seen? For Walt548's tests in Ubuntu, which version of kwin/plasma/xorg were used - and were they different or earlier to those I quoted in comment #24 ?
No versions of kwin/plasma were used and I didn't test on Windows 10 using the configuration supplied by Rowen.
I run the Gnome 3.28.2 desktop, xorg 1.7.7 and couldn't find a LiveCD version of ArchLinux to use for testing. Too many Linux distros and desktops anyway.
Rowen could you try the steps in comment 33?
I don't have those options in my Print Preview > Page Setup.
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Comment 35•5 years ago
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Normally Print Background (colors & images) is turned off (unchecked) on my system.
I tried turning it on. What I then get is a print preview page with the entire background dark but I am running the dark theme, so this makes sense.
However, when I do have this box checked, the print preview shows the page as it appears normally in my Thunderbird window - ie, despite that dark background, it does not have the black bands over the text.
Not sure if that's helpful or not?
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Comment 36•5 years ago
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(In reply to Anje from comment #33)
When you select 'Print Preview' - then select 'Page Setup'
'Format & Options' tab
Under 'Options' section:
If this is selected, then uncheck that option: 'Print background (colours & images)'
Please report on results.
I do not get any 'options' tab for this. Under Page Setup in Print Preview there are only Format For: that allows you to choose which printer, Paper Size, and Orientation, but there are no options concerning background colours and images.
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Comment 37•5 years ago
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I use a dark theme but in Message Pane choose to use a white background.
Please try the following and post results.
Menu app icon > Options
Select 'General'
under 'Language & appearance'
Click on 'colours'
Set text blue or black
Set background white
do not select 'Use system colours' - leave unchecked
Override the colours specified etc..... select 'Never'
click on Ok
Now select email and Print Preview
Please post results
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Comment 38•5 years ago
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Aha - now we have something that is progressing though not yet resolving the bug! With the exact settings that you suggested in comment #32 the email now appears in the preview pane as black text on white background - and Print Preview now does work without any blacked out sections. I also now tried to leave the settings as they were but to leave 'Override the coloured specifed...' as Never but also now put back the check mark for Use System Colours. Now in the preview the mail is as it was before with dark background, but when doing Print Preview it has normal black text on a white background - but it does not print on the printer from either the Print Preview or the Print command directly. So in both cases Print Preview does work, but in neither case will it send to the printer for a hard copy output.
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Reporter | |
Comment 39•5 years ago
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Tried settings in comment #37.
This worked for removing the dark bands in parts of the printouts.
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Reporter | |
Comment 40•5 years ago
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Prior to settings change as outlined in Comment #37
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Reporter | |
Comment 41•5 years ago
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After settings change in Comment #37
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Reporter | |
Comment 42•5 years ago
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Whoa! This is interesting!
I went back and changed my color settings back to the way they were prior to adjusting in comment #37 for testing.
Now everything is printing ok! No dark bands anywhere.
Hmmm.....
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Comment 43•5 years ago
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After my comment in #37 I found the printer was paused and I hadn't noticed - unpausing the printer it did print both test cases without error, but only from Print Preview, but no print came out when going directly to 'Print' irrespective of whether the Use System Colours was checked or not. What made the difference was changing the "Override the colours specified by the content...." to Never and with that setting then Print Preview shows correct output page, and it prints fine. So this at least is partial progress.
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Comment 44•5 years ago
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Your feedback is useful. It would seem that there was a selected override setting in preferences interfering with the text background which is probably not connected to actual text and background colour settings. This was not obvious visually because you both were using a dark background in the Message Pane, but when the print preview reversed colours - black text on white background then the override setting became an issue.
I would say we have resolved the problem and can conclude it is not a bug.
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Comment 45•5 years ago
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The problem unfortunately is not resolved - since whether or not I put black main font on a white background the print directly doesn't print! It only prints if Print Preview is used and then printed from there.
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Comment 46•5 years ago
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The issue - which was experienced by two people on different OS was about the highlighted sections of text that were not desired and that has been resolved as not a bug.
Please note, this not a Help Forum, but I intervened to check it really was a bug or not to save developers some time; usually this sort of question is posted in the Support Forum and if found to be a potential bug then reported.
The issue of not directly printing, could be items stuck in print queue or spooler not running correctly and needing a restart or something else. It's a different issue and best to ask for help in the support forum to double check something is not set up correctly etc before assuming it is an actual bug that needs reporting.
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Comment 47•5 years ago
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I should answer your last assumption about the items stuck in the print queue or spooler - I have both Thunderbird running as well as a chrome browser - initiating a print from Thunderbird directly gave no item in the print queue - but simply switching to chrome and initiating a print from there, the print goes out immediately and prints correctly - and the printer goes back to normal idle mode. Checking the printer and jobs status from the localhost:631 page shows no problems (the paused state during one of the tests was probably unrelated to the prints coming from Thunderbird since retrying didn't put any jobs in the print queue, and I would have seen if there had been jobs paused, but there weren't any)
Equally then initiating a print from the print preview on Thunderbird works fine, even straight after a failed attempt to print direct - but trying again with directly print fails. So it is not due to failure of the printer ,or its queue, in this case, but must be due to something else, within Thunderbird. However no other programme in my system, other than Thunderbird, fails to produce a print when one is initiated other than for this particular situation printing from Thunderbird - also I have until recently been printing from Thunderbird without problems earlier in the 8X.0bx series though I can't be sure which version of 83.0, 84.0 etc was where the problem first arose, but certainly some of the 80.0 and 81.0 versions did not have this issue, despite the dark background settings being unchanged for my systems until the tests suggested in this thread. Clearly the code was changed in recent versions of Thunderbird beta that triggered the problem. If there was a way to provide debug diagnostics I would be happy to try to produce data.
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Comment 48•5 years ago
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Amendment to comment #42
I went back to the Options Colors Override and reset it Always (which is where I've had it set for years).
Now I am back to getting black bands on my printouts.
I would disagree that this issue has been resolved and that it's not a bug. I never had this issue before 78.4.0.
Something definitely changed in 78.4.0.
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Comment 49•5 years ago
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I can't find an Options Colors Override in my Windows 10 settings.
Where do I find that?
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Comment 50•5 years ago
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Walt - In Thunderbird got to Tools --> Options --> General.
Under the Language and Appearance section, click on the Colors button.
At the bottom of that popup, you see a drop down menu for Override the colors specified by the content.
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Comment 51•5 years ago
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re: I went back to the Options Colors Override and reset it Always (which is where I've had it set for years). Now I am back to getting black bands on my printouts.
The result of all the previous feedback meant I suggested you did not set it to 'Always' because it was interfering with printout.
So reselecting 'Always' would reproduce the issue again.
Now, the choice of options that causes the problem has been identified. I did some more testing on a much earlier version 68.12.1 and cannot reproduce.
In 78.5.0
Using dark theme in Windows 10 for system and apps.
Using dark theme in Thunderbrd which I also started in Safe Mode.
Set Language and Appearance 'Colours' to blue text and black background and choose to override 'Always'. 'Use System colours' not selected.
Print Preview showed Blue text, black background and a white text highlight.
Using Dark theme will display Message Pane text with a white background.
Using the set of options to revert the Message Pane to show a dark/black background.
Print Preview shows identical to Message Pane providing the 'override' is NOT set to 'Always'.
Choosing overide option as 'Always' will then display the text with a white highlight .
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Comment 52•5 years ago
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Change 'View' > 'Message Body as' to Plain text.
Text block background chnaged to white.
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Comment 53•5 years ago
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Test info:
Changing to Light theme and using same dark background and override settings - same result.
Using Light theme and changing background to white but still keeping override as Always, did not produce the same result.
It would seem that when using 'Dark' theme, the 'Message Pane' has been given a default white background.
When Language and Appearance 'Colours' to blue text and black background and choose to override 'Never', the desired dark background will display in Message Pane except when an email has been created using css for colours etc.
Print Preview shows as seen in Message Pane.
Setting the override to 'Always' seems to be picking up the white background set by default , but only if no background colour has been included in the email css.
NOTED: If email had a preset background colour in css then this was overridden and print also showed dark background - thus identical to Messagae Pane. No issue with print preview - identical to Message Pane view.
But if email did not specifiy the background colour then I see the text on white highlight as per images posted above.
I had an email from Amazon which has specific areas set with html css coding setting the bacground colour and other areas not set with background - so this was using the default.
All areas NOT set with html css background took up the highlight effect.
I recall another bug which had a problem in dark mode.
If sender had not included a background colour, but has specifiied html css for the text colour as black, then recipient could not read black text on users dark theme background. The sender was assuming everyone used white background.
It may be possible the 'fix' to stop this occuring could now be interfering when the User chooses to 'Always' override and the sender did not specify html css for background.
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Comment 54•5 years ago
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So I can reproduce this weird highlight effect for 'Print Preview' with specific settings, but in my case I get a white highlight effect in Print Preview.
Then when you select 'Print Preview' - then select 'Page Setup'
'Format & Options' tab
Under 'Options' section:
uncheck: 'Print background (colours & images)'
I can reverse the text colour, so now blue text has white background and black highlight on text
However, this time the blue text with black highlight is ONLY where the sender specified html css background colour.
So the 'Page setup' in Print Preview for printing background colours also can effect which text is highlighted.
I used a test email that did specify the background colour and that email did not reproduce the same highlight issue in Print Preview - until I changed the 'Page Setup' to uncheck: 'Print background (colours & images)'.
Hopefully all this info will help to identify where this is occuring.
Current workaround is to change the 'override' option to 'never' prior to printing whilst someone takes a look at this.
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Updated•5 years ago
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Updated•3 years ago
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Comment 56•3 years ago
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Using 102.4.0
I've tried to recreate and failed. Every attempt to use 'Print', the preview shows white background and dark text. If the 'Print' preview has 'Print background (colours & images)'. selected then a background as per email css will display, but no weird highlight.
Tested setting the 'Overide the colours....' option to 'Always' or 'Never' and it did not effect the Print preview.
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Comment 57•3 years ago
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Thanks Anje.
Description
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