456438 - PCL printer and Windows 2000 Pro prints are garbled but print preview works

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Core :: Printing: Output, defect)

Description

[Dori Suchman]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8.1.16) Gecko/20080702 Firefox/2.0.0.16
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070208 Firefox/3.0.1

There appears to be a conflict between FireFox 3, Windows 2000 Pro and a PCL printer - mine is a Minolta PagePro 4100GN. The print preview looks fine, but the print is just garbled garbage for the most part. It works fine with my other computers using Windows XP Pro. Also, the same page prints fine with Windows 2000 using EI and either of my other printers, which are not PCL printers. I have gone back to using FireFox 2.0.0.16 on this computer and that works fine.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Use a machine running Windows 2000 Pro
2.Print using a PCL printer
3.print a web page
Actual Results:  
The print is garbage and mostly unreadable. A few lines or words look OK.

Expected Results:  
Printed the page.

Comment 1

[MozVect]

I have the same problem, but with an other printer (a Sharp ARM350). It happens with some websites but not with all, and it happens with some PCL6 drivers but not with all !

When a printer fails and prints unreadable garbage, it always fails (it's not random failures).

I'm under Windows XP and with Firefox 3.5.2, but the problem is here since FF 3.0.

Maybe there is a problem between some drivers and Firefox.

Comment 2

[MozVect]

Attachment: Example

This image is a scan of a printed page quite unreadable...

Comment 3

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Does this happen in 3.6.6 in a fresh profile? http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Managing+profiles

Comment 4

[jaltamirano1]

I have seen an identical scenario to the example attachment above, which in my case I've noticed happens always except once: on a reboot & opening FF first time, navigating to a URL & attempting to print once -- subsequent printing come out garbled (header, footer, body -- sometimes only header & footer are garbled).  Restarting FF does nothing.  The reboot does not always work. Restarting the printer seems to randomly help.

Currently: (after creating a fresh FF profile as mentioned above)
Under: w2kpro SP4 with PCL6 drivers for Ricoh 1035, FF 3.6.6
Garbled: header & footer (all else ok)

Also Currently
Under: w2kpro SP4 with PCL6 drivers for Cannon iR5570 drivers, FF 3.6.6
Header & footer (& all else) ok.

Comment 5

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

Looks like a form of bug 454532.

Comment 6

[MozVect]

@Tyler : yes, I've just tried with a new fresh profile under Firefox 3.6.6, the problem still happens.

When I print with a PDF Driver like "PDF Creator", everything is ok.

Comment 7

[u597032]

Windows 2000 is no longer supported.