2.6.3-bk9 QA testing: firewire good, USB printing dead

2.6.3-bk9 QA testing: firewire good, USB printing dead

[Daniel Robbins]

Hi everyone,

Ben Collins pointed me to 2.6.3-bk9 for my firewire troubles, and I'm
happy to report that firewire is working like a champ -- never better.
I'm burning 3 CDs simultaneously via firewire (2 controllers) with no
problems. I expect 4 simultaneous burns will also work well. My devices
have Oxford 911 chips, controllers are soundblaster audigy and a generic
3-port 1394a card.

However, 2.6.3-bk9's USB printing support appears to be dead. I can't
get it to work reliably. Tested on Epson Stylus Photo 960 and a Brother
Laser printer. catting files to /dev/usb/lp? tends to fail (process will
get "stuck") and printer data stops flowing. This is on an Athlon XP
(NForce2) system using the on-board USB. The official 2.6.3 release
works fine. I'd expect these USB printing death symptoms to be easily
reproducable on quite a few systems -- the problems hit me in the first
few seconds of print testing. If they end up being more elusive, I can
try to dig up more info for anyone who's interested in trying to isolate
the problem.

Regards,

Daniel

Re: 2.6.3-bk9 QA testing: firewire good, USB printing dead

[Greg KH]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2004 at 07:01:22PM -0700, Daniel Robbins wrote:
> However, 2.6.3-bk9's USB printing support appears to be dead. I can't
> get it to work reliably. Tested on Epson Stylus Photo 960 and a Brother
> Laser printer. catting files to /dev/usb/lp? tends to fail (process will
> get "stuck") and printer data stops flowing. This is on an Athlon XP
> (NForce2) system using the on-board USB. The official 2.6.3 release
> works fine. I'd expect these USB printing death symptoms to be easily
> reproducable on quite a few systems -- the problems hit me in the first
> few seconds of print testing. If they end up being more elusive, I can
> try to dig up more info for anyone who's interested in trying to isolate
> the problem.

Yes, I am.  Do you get any error messages in your syslog when the
printer hangs?

thanks,

greg k-h

Re: 2.6.3-bk9 QA testing: firewire good, USB printing dead

[Daniel Robbins]

On Fri, 2004-02-27 at 19:10, Greg KH wrote:
> Yes, I am.  Do you get any error messages in your syslog when the
> printer hangs?

In some cases, I did. In other cases, I did not. Here are some "greatest
hits... and I was also turning printers on and off and changing cables
and testing different USB ports, so this first batch of log messages
could correspond to those types of changes:

 Feb 27 10:52:11 [kernel] drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: off-line
Feb 27 10:52:44 [kernel] drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: error -71 reading printer status
                - Last output repeated 1140 times -
Feb 27 10:52:45 [kernel] usb 1-4: USB disconnect, address 9
Feb 27 10:52:45 [kernel] drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: error -71 reading printer status
Feb 27 10:52:45 [kernel] drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: removed

Then when I was doing my initial testing with the Epson Stylus Photo 960
and the escputil program (as well as catting printer data directly to
the printer,) I saw a bunch of stuff like this:

Feb 27 10:30:30 [kernel] usb 1-4.3: new full speed USB device using address 11
Feb 27 10:30:30 [kernel] ehci_hcd 0000:00:02.2: qh c1b91700 (#0) state 1
Feb 27 10:30:30 [kernel] drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: USB Bidirectional printer dev 11 if 0 alt 0 proto 2 vid 0x04B8 pid 0x0005
Feb 27 10:31:01 [kernel] drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: on fire

Specific symptoms were not having the printers respond to an escputil
(Epson printer utility from gimp-print) head cleaning run. On the laser
printer, data would get to the printer, but seemingly slowly, and I'd
need to hit the "go" button on the printer to get the sheet to print
rather than have the printer print on its own. It seems that both
printers did not get the full amount of data that they were expecting,
and either didn't respond at all or didn't complete the print job
without manual assistance.

The problems with the laser printer didn't generally produce any log
messages. Those with the Epson (particularly escputil) generally did.

With 2.6.3-bk9, I also had a block of two mainboard USB ports simply
stop functioning -- to the point of even no longer sending power to the
USB hub that I was using.

Hope that helps and let me know if you need any more info,

Daniel

Re: 2.6.3-bk9 QA testing: firewire good, USB printing dead

[Kevin P. Fleming]

Daniel Robbins wrote:

> Feb 27 10:52:44 [kernel] drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: error -71 reading printer status
>                 - Last output repeated 1140 times -

I have this identical problem using a 2.6.3-bk snapshot from a few days 
ago. My hardware is a Samsung ML-2150 printer (USB 2 High Speed) 
connected to a VIA EHCI embedded in my VIA KT-600 chipset.

I sent a four page print job through CUPS; during page 4, the printer 
timed out, and the CUPS "usb" process was hung and would not respond to 
any signals (not even -9). When I unplugged the printer's USB cable, the 
"usb" process died, and my syslog reported these error messages (but not 
before I unplugged the cable). In my case I had 3,458 of them.

Plugging the printer back in, usblp re-registered it, so I tried sending 
a job again, but could not get any data to flow to the printer without 
restarting the Linux system.

Re: 2.6.3-bk9 QA testing: firewire good, USB printing dead

[Greg KH]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2004 at 07:57:32PM -0700, Daniel Robbins wrote:
> 
> With 2.6.3-bk9, I also had a block of two mainboard USB ports simply
> stop functioning -- to the point of even no longer sending power to the
> USB hub that I was using.

That's not good.  Are these real usb 2.0 printers?  Can you run them in
1.1 mode instead (just don't load the ehci-hcd driver)?

If that also fails, here's the only usblp patch in 2.6.3-bk9.  If you
revert it, does that solve the problem?

thanks,

greg k-h


diff -Nru a/drivers/usb/class/usblp.c b/drivers/usb/class/usblp.c
--- a/drivers/usb/class/usblp.c	Fri Feb 27 22:42:31 2004
+++ b/drivers/usb/class/usblp.c	Fri Feb 27 22:42:31 2004
@@ -603,7 +603,7 @@
 {
 	DECLARE_WAITQUEUE(wait, current);
 	struct usblp *usblp = file->private_data;
-	int timeout, err = 0;
+	int timeout, err = 0, transfer_length;
 	size_t writecount = 0;
 
 	while (writecount < count) {
@@ -654,19 +654,13 @@
 			continue;
 		}
 
-		writecount += usblp->writeurb->transfer_buffer_length;
-		usblp->writeurb->transfer_buffer_length = 0;
+		transfer_length=(count - writecount);
+		if (transfer_length > USBLP_BUF_SIZE)
+			transfer_length = USBLP_BUF_SIZE;
 
-		if (writecount == count) {
-			up (&usblp->sem);
-			break;
-		}
+		usblp->writeurb->transfer_buffer_length = transfer_length;
 
-		usblp->writeurb->transfer_buffer_length = (count - writecount) < USBLP_BUF_SIZE ?
-							  (count - writecount) : USBLP_BUF_SIZE;
-
-		if (copy_from_user(usblp->writeurb->transfer_buffer, buffer + writecount,
-				usblp->writeurb->transfer_buffer_length)) {
+		if (copy_from_user(usblp->writeurb->transfer_buffer, buffer + writecount, transfer_length)) {
 			up(&usblp->sem);
 			return writecount ? writecount : -EFAULT;
 		}
@@ -683,6 +677,8 @@
 			break;
 		}
 		up (&usblp->sem);
+
+		writecount += transfer_length;
 	}
 
 	return count;

Re: 2.6.3-bk9 QA testing: firewire good, USB printing dead

[Mike]

On Fri, 27 Feb 2004 19:57:32 -0700, Daniel Robbins wrote:

> On Fri, 2004-02-27 at 19:10, Greg KH wrote:
>> Yes, I am.  Do you get any error messages in your syslog when the
>> printer hangs?
> 
> In some cases, I did. In other cases, I did not. Here are some "greatest
> hits... and I was also turning printers on and off and changing cables
> and testing different USB ports, so this first batch of log messages
> could correspond to those types of changes:
> 
>  Feb 27 10:52:11 [kernel] drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: off-line
> Feb 27 10:52:44 [kernel] drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: error -71
> reading printer status
>                 - Last output repeated 1140 times -
> Feb 27 10:52:45 [kernel] usb 1-4: USB disconnect, address 9 Feb 27
> 10:52:45 [kernel] drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: error -71 reading
> printer status Feb 27 10:52:45 [kernel] drivers/usb/class/usblp.c:
> usblp0: removed
> 
> Then when I was doing my initial testing with the Epson Stylus Photo 960
> and the escputil program (as well as catting printer data directly to
> the printer,) I saw a bunch of stuff like this:
> 
> Feb 27 10:30:30 [kernel] usb 1-4.3: new full speed USB device using
> address 11 Feb 27 10:30:30 [kernel] ehci_hcd 0000:00:02.2: qh c1b91700
> (#0) state 1 Feb 27 10:30:30 [kernel] drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0:
> USB Bidirectional printer dev 11 if 0 alt 0 proto 2 vid 0x04B8 pid
> 0x0005 Feb 27 10:31:01 [kernel] drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: on
> fire
> 
> Specific symptoms were not having the printers respond to an escputil
> (Epson printer utility from gimp-print) head cleaning run. On the laser
> printer, data would get to the printer, but seemingly slowly, and I'd
> need to hit the "go" button on the printer to get the sheet to print
> rather than have the printer print on its own. It seems that both
> printers did not get the full amount of data that they were expecting,
> and either didn't respond at all or didn't complete the print job
> without manual assistance.
> 
> The problems with the laser printer didn't generally produce any log
> messages. Those with the Epson (particularly escputil) generally did.
> 
> With 2.6.3-bk9, I also had a block of two mainboard USB ports simply
> stop functioning -- to the point of even no longer sending power to the
> USB hub that I was using.
> 
> Hope that helps and let me know if you need any more info,
> 
> Daniel

FYI these problems started for me about two weeks ago. I don't know what
event started it but I am running the Gentoo distro, with 2.6.3-mm2 (it
started these probs before 2.6.3-mm2), usb 1.1 OHCI with an Epson C80.
Print jobs would hang and I had to unplug my usb cable to clear the job. I
have reinstalled everything having to do with printing and I can now at
least print but it hangs on the last page. I have to turn the printer
off/on to continue. I assumed this was a cups issue but it sounds like a
usb issue with the kernel?

Re: 2.6.3-bk9 QA testing: firewire good, USB printing dead

[Jens Axboe]

On Fri, Feb 27 2004, Greg KH wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2004 at 07:01:22PM -0700, Daniel Robbins wrote:
> > However, 2.6.3-bk9's USB printing support appears to be dead. I can't
> > get it to work reliably. Tested on Epson Stylus Photo 960 and a Brother
> > Laser printer. catting files to /dev/usb/lp? tends to fail (process will
> > get "stuck") and printer data stops flowing. This is on an Athlon XP
> > (NForce2) system using the on-board USB. The official 2.6.3 release
> > works fine. I'd expect these USB printing death symptoms to be easily
> > reproducable on quite a few systems -- the problems hit me in the first
> > few seconds of print testing. If they end up being more elusive, I can
> > try to dig up more info for anyone who's interested in trying to isolate
> > the problem.
> 
> Yes, I am.  Do you get any error messages in your syslog when the
> printer hangs?

FWIW, saw the same thing here today. 2.6.2-mm1 was the previous kernel
and it worked, 2.6.3-mm4 gives me a bunch of:

kernel: drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: off-line
kernel: drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: ok
kernel: drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: off-line
kernel: drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: ok
kernel: drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: off-line
kernel: drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: ok
kernel: drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: off-line
kernel: drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: ok
kernel: drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: off-line
kernel: drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: ok

No usb 2.x at all on this box.

-- 
Jens Axboe

[PATCH] Re: 2.6.3-bk9 QA testing: firewire good, USB printing dead

[Barry K. Nathan]

Does this patch (following my signature) fix the printer hangs?
(It does for me.)

BTW, it's also an attachment on OSDL bugzilla #2221:
http://bugme.osdl.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2221

-Barry K. Nathan <barryn@pobox.com>

diff -ruN linux-2.6.3-bk2/drivers/usb/class/usblp.c linux-2.6.3-bk2-bkn1/drivers/usb/class/usblp.c
--- linux-2.6.3-bk2/drivers/usb/class/usblp.c	2004-02-29 23:18:26.000000000 -0800
+++ linux-2.6.3-bk2-bkn1/drivers/usb/class/usblp.c	2004-02-29 23:17:24.000000000 -0800
@@ -603,7 +603,7 @@
 {
 	DECLARE_WAITQUEUE(wait, current);
 	struct usblp *usblp = file->private_data;
-	int timeout, err = 0, transfer_length;
+	int timeout, err = 0, transfer_length = 0;
 	size_t writecount = 0;
 
 	while (writecount < count) {
@@ -654,6 +654,16 @@
 			continue;
 		}
 
+		/* We must increment writecount here, and not at the
+		 * end of the loop. Otherwise, the final loop iteration may
+		 * be skipped, leading to incomplete printer output.
+		 */
+		writecount += transfer_length;
+		if (writecount == count) {
+			up (&usblp->sem);
+			break;
+		}
+
 		transfer_length=(count - writecount);
 		if (transfer_length > USBLP_BUF_SIZE)
 			transfer_length = USBLP_BUF_SIZE;
@@ -677,8 +687,6 @@
 			break;
 		}
 		up (&usblp->sem);
-
-		writecount += transfer_length;
 	}
 
 	return count;

Re: [PATCH] Re: 2.6.3-bk9 QA testing: firewire good, USB printing dead

[Jens Axboe]

On Sun, Feb 29 2004, Barry K. Nathan wrote:
> Does this patch (following my signature) fix the printer hangs?
> (It does for me.)
> 
> BTW, it's also an attachment on OSDL bugzilla #2221:
> http://bugme.osdl.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2221

Works for me, thanks (applied on top of 2.6.4-rc1-mm1)

-- 
Jens Axboe

Re: [PATCH] Re: 2.6.3-bk9 QA testing: firewire good, USB printing dead

[Mike]

On Sun, 29 Feb 2004 23:43:48 -0800, Barry K. Nathan wrote:

> Does this patch (following my signature) fix the printer hangs? (It does
> for me.)
> 
> BTW, it's also an attachment on OSDL bugzilla #2221:
> http://bugme.osdl.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2221
> 
> -Barry K. Nathan <barryn@pobox.com>
> 
> diff -ruN linux-2.6.3-bk2/drivers/usb/class/usblp.c
> linux-2.6.3-bk2-bkn1/drivers/usb/class/usblp.c ---
> linux-2.6.3-bk2/drivers/usb/class/usblp.c	2004-02-29 23:18:26.000000000
> -0800 +++ linux-2.6.3-bk2-bkn1/drivers/usb/class/usblp.c	2004-02-29
> 23:17:24.000000000 -0800 @@ -603,7 +603,7 @@
>  {
>  	DECLARE_WAITQUEUE(wait, current);
>  	struct usblp *usblp = file->private_data;
> -	int timeout, err = 0, transfer_length; +	int timeout, err = 0,
> transfer_length = 0;
>  	size_t writecount = 0;
>  
>  	while (writecount < count) {
> @@ -654,6 +654,16 @@
>  			continue;
>  		}
>  
> +		/* We must increment writecount here, and not at the +		 * end of the
> loop. Otherwise, the final loop iteration may +		 * be skipped, leading
> to incomplete printer output. +		 */
> +		writecount += transfer_length;
> +		if (writecount == count) {
> +			up (&usblp->sem);
> +			break;
> +		}
> +
>  		transfer_length=(count - writecount); if (transfer_length >
>  		USBLP_BUF_SIZE)
>  			transfer_length = USBLP_BUF_SIZE;
> @@ -677,8 +687,6 @@
>  			break;
>  		}
>  		up (&usblp->sem);
> -
> -		writecount += transfer_length;
>  	}
>  
>  	return count;
I also applied this patch to 2.6.4-rc1-mm1 and my printer problem seems to
be solved. This is the first time in two weeks that printing has worked
properly for me. Thx :)

Re: [PATCH] Re: 2.6.3-bk9 QA testing: firewire good, USB printing dead

[Paulo Marques]

Barry K. Nathan wrote:

>  
> +		/* We must increment writecount here, and not at the
> +		 * end of the loop. Otherwise, the final loop iteration may
> +		 * be skipped, leading to incomplete printer output.
> +		 */


You are correct.


I'm affraid this is my fault, for correcting a bug and letting another one take 
its place :(

It seems that this patch squashes them both. It should go in ASAP.

-- 
Paulo Marques - www.grupopie.com
"In a world without walls and fences who needs windows and gates?"

firewire good, USB printing fixed, CD-ROM block device IO errors near end of media

[Daniel Robbins]

On Tue, 2004-03-02 at 06:09, Paulo Marques wrote:
> Barry K. Nathan wrote:
> 
> >  
> > +		/* We must increment writecount here, and not at the
> > +		 * end of the loop. Otherwise, the final loop iteration may
> > +		 * be skipped, leading to incomplete printer output.
> > +		 */
> 
> I'm affraid this is my fault, for correcting a bug and letting another one take 
> its place :(
> 
> It seems that this patch squashes them both. It should go in ASAP.

Sorry I have been unable to test the fix; Gentoo Linux 2004.0 just got
released and I just became... err... ultra-busy? But it does look like
others who experienced the exact problem I was having now have
functional USB, so I'd expect it to work for me too.

I'm now experiencing kernel problems (apparently this isn't a new thing)
related to how Linux maps a CD-ROM to a block device  -- problems using
dd to verify a burnt CD, where the kernel spits back random IO error
messages as it nears the end of the burned area.

If anyone is interested, you can learn more about the problems in the
following thread (I am experiencing the exact problems of the original
poster.) The posts from Joerg Schilling are probably most helpful in
finding a kernel solution to this problem: 

http://lists.debian.org/cdwrite/2003/cdwrite-200310/threads.html#00009

zisofs makes a filesystem-based verify of a CD quite a time-consuming
and inefficient process (due to seeking,) so it would be nice if a "dd"
or "readcd"-based linear CD verify worked reliably under Linux.

Regards,

Daniel

Re: [PATCH] Re: 2.6.3-bk9 QA testing: firewire good, USB printing dead

[Greg KH]

On Tue, Mar 02, 2004 at 01:09:45PM +0000, Paulo Marques wrote:
> Barry K. Nathan wrote:
> 
> > 
> >+		/* We must increment writecount here, and not at the
> >+		 * end of the loop. Otherwise, the final loop iteration may
> >+		 * be skipped, leading to incomplete printer output.
> >+		 */
> 
> 
> You are correct.
> 
> 
> I'm affraid this is my fault, for correcting a bug and letting another one 
> take its place :(
> 
> It seems that this patch squashes them both. It should go in ASAP.

This patch is already in Linus's tree.

thanks,

greg k-h