Misalignment of rear-side printing using double-sided mode on Samsung ProXpress M3820ND

[Chapmip]

Set-up:

Linux Mint 19.1 Cinnamon 64-bit (also occurred when testing Linux Mint 21.1 Cinnamon 64-bit)
CUPS versions since May 2019 or earlier (currently CUPS 2.2.7)
Samsung ProXpress M3820ND
A4 paper, double-sided printing

Problem scenario:

1. When printing to A4 sheets in double-sided mode using CUPS without using the Samsung printer driver, the print output on the rear side of the sheet is displaced to the right by 10mm compared to that on the front side.
2. When printing the same way from the same platform after installing the Samsung Print Driver for Linux (V1.00.39_01:17, Sep 1, 2017) and configuring a print queue with this driver, the print output on the front and rear sides is correctly aligned.
3. This issue does not occur when printing to the same printer from Windows, Android and Chromebook clients -- so it appears to be CUPS-specific.

Further analysis:

1. I originally described this issue in this posting in 2019 in the Linux Mint forums. The posting contains detailed information including the outputs from various diagnostic commands. At that time, I worked around the issue (hence shown as "[SOLVED]") by installing the Samsung driver and using a CUPS print queue associated with this driver.
2. I re-visited this scenario in January 2023 whilst testing out the latest Linux Mint installation (Linux Mint 21.1). The same issue occurred when using "driverless" printing for this printer under CUPS. Once again, I could work around the issue by installing the Samsung printer driver and creating a print queue that adopted it.
3. My concern now is that CUPS is intending to drop support for printer drivers, so the workaround using the Samsung driver may become unusable in the near future.

Images:
Below is the front side of a print using CUPS without the Samsung printer driver. The left margin measures 5mm on the A4 sheet:

Below is the rear side of a print using CUPS without the Samsung printer driver. The left margin measures 15mm on the A4 sheet (i.e. output shifted right by 10mm):

Below is the front side of a print using a CUPS print queue associated with the installed Samsung printer driver. The left margin measures 5mm on the A4 sheet as before:

Below is the rear side of a print using a CUPS print queue associated with the installed Samsung printer driver. The left margin correctly measures 5mm on the A4 sheet (i.e. aligned with the front side):

[sourabh1952]

@Chapmip is the problem printer specific means only for Samsung ProXpress M3820ND printer ?

[Chapmip]

@sourabh1952 I'm unable to answer that question as I only have access to this one model of Samsung printer.

I imagine that some other Samsung printers may use the same print engine and would experience the same problem, but I simply don't know.

I therefore raised the issue for this specific Samsung model, in the hope that the issue may be readily reproducible on this and perhaps other Samsung models. The Samsung driver that solves the problem (see link above) appears to be generic (i.e. not targeted at this specific model of printer).

[sourabh1952]

@Chapmip can you please share your error log in debug mode and share your ppd file in .txt format.

[Chapmip]

I'm not familiar with CUPS, so I'm hoping that I've taken the right steps (see attachments) to secure a debug error log for a double-sided A4 print with the Samsung printer. I carried these out using Linux Mint 21.1 Cinnamon (64-bit) edition. I've attached both my terminal command input and the error log output here as separate text files.

When you say "your ppd file", I assume that you mean the PPD file from the Samsung Print Driver for Linux (V1.00.39_01:17, Sep 1, 2017) download -- this is the one that produces correctly aligned output when installed. I've attached that file here as well.

Debug Error Log:

terminal_commands.txt
error_log.txt

PPD File from Samsung Driver for Linux:

Samsung_M332x_382x_402x_Series.ppd.txt

I hope that's helpful!

[michaelrsweet]

Moving this over to the cups-filters project since CUPS itself isn't responsible for generating the raster data for these printers.

[tillkamppeter]

@Chapmip could you attach your file /etc/cups/ppd/Samsung_M332x_382x_402x_Series_SEC84251977B9D1.ppd (please rename the copy to be attached to have .txt in the end so that GitHub accepts it).

[Chapmip]

@tillkamppeter Please see attached file (modified to .txt as requested).

From Linux Mint 21.1 Cinnamon (64-bit) edition:

Samsung_M332x_382x_402x_Series_SEC84251977B9D1.ppd.txt

[sourabh1952]

@Chapmip as much I read about the files and filters which are responsible here, I didn't got any such indication in issue with margin in even/odd pages.
Are you provided any margin from the terminal or used the default one. If you not set margin from terminal can you please specify some margin from the terminal. If the issue persists then let me know.

[Chapmip]

@sourabh1952 Thank you for looking into this further. I haven't changed any margin settings, so the settings have always been the defaults.

I have not been able to find any option for changing the print margins differently on "even" vs "odd" pages. I found some margin settings (see below) but they apply to all pages.

"Printer Properties" window on Linux Mint

The only options for margins that I found here were under "Job Options":

Text Options:

Characters per inch:  10.00
Lines per inch:        6.00
Left margin:           0 points
Right margin:          0 points
Top margin:            0 points
Bottom margin:         0 points

I did a "Print Test Page" from the "Printer Properties" window and observed that the "even" page was, as expected, incorrectly displaced to the right compared to the "odd" page.

I then tried this in the "Printer Properties" window:

1. Changed all four margins above from 0 points to 50 points
2. Did "Print Test Page" from the "Printer Properties" menu

I observed that:

1. On both sides of the double-sided page, the rendered print was in the same position as when the margins were "0 points" all round
2. The rendered print on the "even" page was still incorrectly displaced to the right compared to the "odd" page

Printing from an Application

I also tried adjusting the margin settings in Firefox. Those caused the body text to move, but with the same incorrect displacement overall to the right on the "even" page. The header and footer remained in exactly the same positions as before I changed the margins, also with the incorrect displacement to the right on the "even" page compared to the "odd" page.

CUPS Web interface

I logged into localhost:631. In the output below, I have replaced the printer-specific "SEC" string with "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx".

From "Manage Printers":

Samsung_M332x_382x_402x_Series_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_

Samsung_M332x_382x_402x_Series_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_ (Idle, Accepting Jobs, Not Shared)

Description:	Samsung_M332x_382x_402x_Series_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_
Location:	
Driver:         M332x 382x 402x Series (grayscale, 2-sided printing)
Connection:     ipp://xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.local:631/ipp/print
Default:        job-sheets=none, none media=iso_a4_210x297mm sides=two-sided-long-edge

"Print Test Page" from CUPS produced the same result as above -- the "even" page output was incorrectly displaced to the right compared to the "odd" page.

I couldn't find any option in the CUPS Web interface to change any margins.

From "Set Default Options":

Set Default Options for Samsung_M332x_382x_402x_Series_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_

General

Media Size: 	   A4
Media Source: 	   Tray 1
Media Type: 	   Plain Paper
2-Sided Printing:  Long-Edge (Portrait)
Print Quality:     Normal

(I found nothing relevant under "Banners" or "Policies")

I'm not sure how helpful that is. Unfortunately, I think I've reached the limits of my understanding of what tests to try.

[sourabh1952]

@Chapmip in your points you say that you add 50 points to all the four margins but the output is same as 0 points.
Is this means that their is no affect in the new margin of the page when you added extra 50 points, the new margin(50 points) is same as old one(0 points).
Am I understand right or not?

[Chapmip]

@sourabh1952 That is correct. However, the setting that I changed in the Linux Mint "Printer Properties" window was under the title "Text Options", along with settings for "Characters per inch" and "Lines per inch". I am not sure whether any of these settings affect the graphical output from "Print Test Page". Maybe it doesn't change that, so it wouldn't change the problem either.

I just tried again and had the same result. Specifically, I did the following in the Linux Mint "Printer Properties" window:

1. Checked that all of the margins under "Text Options" were initially to "0 points"
2. Printed a double-sided "Printer test page"
3. Changed all of the margins under "Text Options" to "75 points" and clicked "Apply"
4. Printed another double-sided "Printer test page"

I put both sheets together and held them up to the light. They aligned exactly -- no change.

Maybe this is the wrong test.

[tillkamppeter]

@Chapmip could you run the following commands:

ipptool -tv ipp://SEC84251977B9D1.local:631/ipp/print get-printer-attributes.test > attrs.txt
ipptool --ippserver ippserver-attrs.txt ipp://SEC84251977B9D1.local:631/ipp/print get-printer-attributes.test

Please attach both output files. The former is more human-readable. With the latter, we can emulate your printer for further investigation via

ippeveprinter -a ippserver-attrs.txt testprinter

Find its URI via

driverless --std-ipp-uris

[Chapmip]

@tillkamppeter I ran the first command and it produced an "attrs.txt" file, which I have attached here.

attrs.txt

The second command, though, fails with the error message:

ipptool: Unknown option "--".
Usage: ipptool [options] URI filename [ ... filenameN ]

Was I supposed to enter that second command line literally, as I did?

I don't see where a different URI needed to be entered in either of the above commands. The ipp://SEC84251977B9D1.local:631 seemed to find the printer okay in the first command.

I also tried driverless --std-ipp-uris, but it failed too with the error message:

ERROR: Invalid URI: --std-ipp-uris

I tried ipptool --version and it returned:

CUPS v2.2.7

[tillkamppeter]

@Chapmip it seems that your CUPS version is too old to provide all the latest and greatest debugging methods. The described methods work on Ubuntu Lunar Lobster (upcoming 23.04) and probably need at least CUPS 2.4.x. I do not remember now in which version of cups-filters I introduced the option --std-ipp-uris for the driverless utility.

So due to this fact, we only can check through your atts.txt manually, but this could already be of help.

If you have also a newer Linux at hand, like Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) you could try the mentioned commands there.