425094 - Print selection option causes printer to spit blank pages.

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 402264

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Josef]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b4) Gecko/2008030714 Firefox/3.0b4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b4) Gecko/2008030714 Firefox/3.0b4

After highlighting text and choosing "Print Selection" from File > Print, the printer will take a single paper sheet, pause a moment, and then move it through the printer without printing anything on it and stop.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Highlight any text/graphics
2. Select File > Print > Print Selection
Actual Results:  
Explained int details.

Expected Results:  
Should print what is highlighted on page by user.

This is more than an inconvenience, it's vital I be able to print only parts of pages to save ink and paper. Printing without selection works normally.

Comment 1

[Ivan Babkin]

I can confirm this with Firefox 3 beta 5. Print selection "prints" only blank pages.

Comment 2

[Ivan Babkin]

... more details on my system: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; ru; rv:1.9b5) Gecko/2008032620 Firefox/3.0b5
Operating system - Windows 2000 5.00.2195 (Service Pack 4)

Comment 3

[Andrew Oakley]

I can confirm this bug in Firefox 3 beta 5 in Linux Ubuntu Hardy.

Steps to reproduce:

* Highlight some text or objects on the page using the mouse
* Select File menu - Print - Options tab - click Print Selection Only tickbox
* Click Print

Expected result:

* Printer outputs highlighted selection only, with header and footer

Actual result:

* Printer outputs completely blank page. No selection, no header, no footer, nothing on the page at all, completely blank.

Importance:

* This is vital functionality. It is unreasonable to expect users to print out dozens of pages when all they require is one highlighted paragraph.

* Furthermore this is environmentally unfriendly, a waste of paper.

Comment 4

[SteVe Cook]

I can confirm this bug in Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-GB; rv:1.9b5) Gecko/2008050509 Firefox/3.0b5 on Linux Ubuntu Hardy.

Comment 5

[Ivan Babkin]

(In reply to comment #2)
> ... more details on my system: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; ru;
> rv:1.9b5) Gecko/2008032620 Firefox/3.0b5
> Operating system - Windows 2000 5.00.2195 (Service Pack 4)
> 
This bug also happens on Ubuntu Hardy for me:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; ru; rv:1.9b5) Gecko/2008050509 Firefox/3.0b5

The easiest way to reproduce is to press Ctrl+A on this page (to select the whole page), then print selection using "PDF" printer. The result is ~2kb empty .pdf file.

Comment 6

[Ivan Babkin]

And it looks like this is a duplicate of bug https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=402264
though its not clear whether the bug was fixed or not

Comment 7

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

Yes, this definitely sounds like a duplicate of that bug. And yes, that bug was fixed, and the follow-up issue described in the last few comments was fixed in the bug that was filed for that.

You can test a recent trunk build if you like, from http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/,  or you can wait for Firefox 3 rc1, which I think will be out within a week or two.

Comment 8

[Gideon]

I'm amazed that this bug is still here. I just installed FF3
on June 12, and found this very behavior (Win XPH, SP3).
(Note: There was a bug that was never entirely fixed with FF2,
and this FF3 bug was complained about at least a month ago.)
In short, I'm confirming the bug. Blank pages (with the top line
of address and title, but nothing else) result from Print Selection.

Comment 9

[Gideon]

Let me add two things to my earlier post today.
a) Same behavior in safe mode, so it has nothing to do with any extensions.
b) I just got strange behavior when I tried print selection for a
Quicken.com fund portfolio table. It printed the selection, but the column
titles were in gobbledygook. Later, I tried the same thing. Gobbledygook
column titles again, plus incomplete printing (the bottom several rows
of the table were also missing. My conclusion is that there's some variation
in the behavior of this bug. But, it's clearly a powerful bug

Comment 10

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

(In reply to comment #8)
> I'm amazed that this bug is still here. 

"This" bug (as a duplicate of bug 402264) has been fixed, as have many print selection bugs in the past month or two. 

> I just installed FF3
> on June 12, and found this very behavior (Win XPH, SP3).
> ...
> Blank pages (with the top line
> of address and title, but nothing else) result from Print Selection.

Can you file a new bug at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Core and please include the URL and selection range that gave this behavior (blank print-selection output)?    Without that information, I can't figure out what's going on.

New bug would be quite helpful, because it's way too messy to try and discuss & solve bugs on an existing bug page that's duplicated to an already-fixed bug. :)

(In reply to comment #9)
> b) I just got strange behavior when I tried print selection for a
> Quicken.com fund portfolio table. It printed the selection, but the column
> titles were in gobbledygook. Later, I tried the same thing. Gobbledygook
> column titles again, plus incomplete printing (the bottom several rows
> of the table were also missing.

Thanks, that's good to know -- could an you file a separate bug for that, too, with the exact URL for a quicken.com page that reproduces the bug?  (I'm hoping the offending page wasn't protected and/or personal -- but if it is, could you possibly save a copy, remove/replace any personal data from the HTML, and then post that as a testcase on the bug?  We can't really do much without a URL or a testcase to work with.)

> My conclusion is that there's some variation
> in the behavior of this bug.

Probably not, actually -- I've seen & fixed a lot of print-selection issues lately, and they've had related but distinct root causes. :)  So, if you could file those two bugs separately, that'd be appreciated.

Comment 11

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

(In reply to comment #10)
> Can you file a new bug at
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Core

BTW, please choose Version = "Trunk" and Component = "Printing".

Comment 12

[Gideon]

The very best example is this very page, viz.,
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=425094 . I try for two paragraphs,
and all I get printed is the title and URL, on the top line, all else blank.
However, I see what you mean about the variation, with different pages.
But why should a new bug should be filed. This is not happening at exotic web addresses. It happens at http://www.tnr.com/ in the main way described above.
It happens at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugzilla in a different way:
If you highlight in the History section, starting with "was originally written"
and ending with "May 10 2007", it will work almost properly but will add the
beginning of the paragraph, and three extra words at the end. There is similar
behavior at http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/ . And at many pages it's worse,
and doesn't show anything other than the title and web address. There must be something basically pretty wrong. I can't file the URL for my Quicken portfolio
as that depends on my password and has a very specific long number included.
At http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/992700.html you'll find that extra
words of text are added to the beginning and end of your selection.
Given that it happens on the very page where I'm typing (choosing a couple of
paragraphs written by previous posters), and a total blank except for that top line results, I don't see why a different bug should be filed. What happens on this page fits the original description perfectly, so it is not fixed yet.
Frustrating. I'm glad that some things are being fixed though. Thanks.

Comment 13

[Gideon]

In the posting I just made, where I entered the URL of this page, I see that an altered URL with a line through it appears, not what I typed. The correct URL (starting with h t t p s -- I'm not taking chances) is bugzilla dot mozilla
dot org slash process underline bug dot cgi

Comment 14

[Gideon]

Apologies. Let me try again:
(starting with h t t p s -- I'm not taking chances) is bugzilla dot mozilla
dot org slash process underline bug dot cgi question mark id=425094

Comment 15

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

(In reply to comment #12)
> The very best example is this very page, viz.,
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=425094 . I try for two paragraphs,
> and all I get printed is the title and URL, on the top line, all else blank.

Again -- please be specific.  Which two paragraphs did you select?  FWIW, if i select two paragraphs from comment 0, they print just fine.  However, if I select a lower chunk (e.g. all of comment 13), i get the behavior you describe.  This particular problem is almost certainly due to bug 433373, which already has a fix that will probably make it into Firefox 3.0.1.

> If you highlight in the History section, starting with "was originally written"
> and ending with "May 10 2007", it will work almost properly but will add the
> beginning of the paragraph, and three extra words at the end.
> ...
> At http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/992700.html you'll find that extra
> words of text are added to the beginning and end of your selection.

Those both sound like bug 428111.

> There is similar
> behavior at http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/ . And at many pages it's worse,
> and doesn't show anything other than the title and web address. There must be
> something basically pretty wrong.

Depending on what your selection range is (in particular, if you're starting your selection partway through the document rather than at the top of the page), then many of those problems are probably due to the bug I mentioned above -- bug 433373 -- which again will hopefully be fixed in Firefox 3.0.1

> But why should a new bug should be filed.
> ...
> What happens on
> this page fits the original description perfectly, 
> so it is not fixed yet.

Wrong.

The original description basically says "Print selection always prints blank pages, regardless of web page and selection." (which was true at one point).  *That* bug is now fixed.  Period.

What you're describing is "Print selection prints blank pages on some specific URLs, if you select some specific chunks."  These are *different issues* from this bug's issue, and they merit *different bugs*.

Bottom line: this bug page cannot and should not be used to fix all future print selection bugs.  Ok?  As I said in comment 10:
>> New bug would be quite helpful, because it's way too messy to try and 
>> discuss & solve bugs on an existing bug page that's duplicated to an
>> already-fixed bug. :)

> I can't file the URL for my Quicken portfolio
> as that depends on my password and has a very specific long number included.

Ok -- can you file a new bug on that anyway, without a testcase for now, with as much information as you can provide about how to reproduce it? (i.e. steps to get to the portfolio page, what to select, etc.)  Then, hopefully we can then get somebody else with a quicken account to reproduce it and make a de-identified testcase so I can figure out what's wrong.

If you want, you might wait to do this until after Firefox 3.0.1 is out, to see if the fix for bug 433373 will fix your Quicken issue.

> I'm glad that some things are being fixed though. Thanks.

No prob -- thanks for saying thanks.

(In reply to comment #13)
> In the posting I just made, where I entered the URL of this page, I see that an
> altered URL with a line through it appears, not what I typed. 

Don't worry about that -- that's just styling.  The link is still functional.  The strikethrough just indicates that the linked bug is closed (in this case, the linked bug is *this* bug, which has been closed as a duplicate).

Comment 16

[Gideon]

OK, thanks. I submitted it, as bug 439359, citing the blank page
for a paragraph selected on this page (the one starting with "Don't worry
about that"), and the extra words printed for selections on the Wiki page
for Bugzilla.
Again, thanks. And, good luck to all of us.

Comment 17

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

(In reply to comment #16)
> OK, thanks. I submitted it, as bug 439359

Great, thanks.