608562 - Print Preview always fails with "Cannot find Printer" after printer name change despite Print working

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(MailNews Core :: Printing, defect)

Description

[Stewart Champion]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.12) Gecko/20101026 Firefox/3.6.12
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.12) Gecko/20101027 Thunderbird/3.1.6 

After installing Windows 7 Professional and reinstalling Firefox and Thunderbird I renamed the default printer from the W7 assigned default of "HP Photosmart 7760" to "HP7760" for ease of sharing.  Firefox and Thunderbird both adapted readily for the Print function and started posting output to the proper printer name immediately after selecting it in the print dialogue box.  However all subsequent "print preview" operations on thunderbird mails resulted in the error message "Printer could not be found".  I tried Firefox print preview and it adapted to the new printer name immediately without comment.  Thunderbird put nothing on the error console either.

I did some digging and found the config editor string of "print.print_printer" still set to the old HP Photosmart string.  When I reset it and did a subsequent print rechoosing the new default printer name, the print preview of mails stopped returning the error and worked normally.  

Thunderbird needs to do whatever it is that Firefox does to adapt to new printer names after one has been selected by the Print dialog box.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Install Thunderbird with default printer name already set
2.Rename default printer
3.Select Print and reselect new printer name.
4.Do a print preview of any mail and get a "cannot find printer"
Actual Results:  
Print preview cannot find printer.

Expected Results:  
Print preview should show preview of page as formatted for the last print dialog selected printer.

Need to reset print.print_printer value whenever print dialog sees a name change.

Comment 1

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Removing myslef on all the bugs I'm cced on. Please NI me if you need something on MailNews Core bugs from me.

Comment 2

[Tony Davis]

If this is still a valid reproducible issue, is it worth retesting under Windows 11 after update KB5066835 is applied?
Although this is supposed to fix some hanging printing issues with Chrome Based browsers, could there be some common FF coding that comes into play, and might have been fixed with this Microsoft update?
[Browser] Fixed: This update [KB5066835] addresses an issue that caused the print preview screen to stop responding in Chromium-based browsers.

Comment 3

[Calixte Denizet (:calixte)]

I don't know why I've this needinfo...

Comment 4

[Tony Davis]

FYI: for very old bugs like this, there appears to be no good way to alert for new input **(I believe the scenario reported is still related to print preview bugs still happening). **
There is NO triage owner shown, so I thought I would try an active staff member that tends to look at new bugs or new information.
**Can you please let me know what the recommended NEEDINFO mechanism should be for older reported bugs like this, where there is NO obvious owner, or moderator to alert? **

Comment 5

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Sure, test away with the latest Thunderbird and Win11. Before anyone would pursue it further testing if it still exists would be the first step.

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Tony can you reproduce?

Comment 7

[Tony Davis]

Wayne, this issue is hard to reproduce now. Even testing a print preview with the target printer connected machine turned off, it goes back to the initial tab (i.e. on Firefox, just trying to print a 4 page tab, as if it had actually printed). I do not use Thunderbird, but the description of the issue sounded very similar, hence my comments on here. It is possible that a recent update to Windows 11 has improved print API dialogue.
If you need to close this old bug off, please do so if appropriate.

Comment 8

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Danny are you still able to test windows 7?

Comment 9

[Dan Pernokis]

Yes and No....

My Windows 7 machine is still running, but I lost my system drive during migration to my new system. I replaced it with the previous drive (circa 2019) so the system would boot and I could access my data drives, but Windows 7 and TB are stuck in a time warp. (This TB had never been updated past v91.13.1 in any case)

But I loaded TB anyway to test this bug -- that would be TB 60.4.0 (32-bit) -- and print-previewed a random email. Preview worked fine, even though there was no printer attached, no network connected, etc. Then I went to my Windows 11 system running TB 146.0.1 (64-bit). TB's right-click menu has "Print..." which automatically loads a preview (same as the PRINT button) -- and it worked fine too. Then I deliberately selected a printer which is not on line (switched OFF in fact) -- the preview changed slightly (so I know it was active) but continued to display OK.

So I would say this bug is no more, at least as far back as Jan 2019. (And I confirmed that Windows Update KB5066835 was applied back in October 2025...)