[Solved] Print button is grayed out

Issues with installing under all GNU/Linux Distributions
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BlownCPU
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Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 5:35 pm

[Solved] Print button is grayed out

Post by BlownCPU »

Hi,

I'm running Fedora 8 with the latest kernel 2.6.24.

This is my first post, I have done a search but am unable to find a solution.

I have been successfully running OpenOffice and my HP 4280 ink jet printer for the last few months when today I wanted to print something and I found that the "Print" button in the print window from menu /File/Print is grayed out!

The printer works well as I can print from Firefox and the text editor.

All other Office software do not print either.

I look forward to a response,

All the best,

Blown CPU
Last edited by Hagar Delest on Mon Jun 09, 2008 11:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: tagged the thread as Solved.
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foxcole
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Re: Print button is grayed out

Post by foxcole »

BlownCPU wrote:All other Office software do not print either.
Do you mean other OpenOffice.org modules, or MS Office programs too?

What version of OOo are you using? Please find the 3-digit version number in Help> About OpenOffice.org.
Cheers!
---Fox

OOo 3.2.0 Portable, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
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acknak
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Re: Print button is grayed out

Post by acknak »

Are you sure it's not a problem with your CPU? Ha ha. Sorry.

Check that the print server is running. From the command line it will be something like "service cupsd status" (as root). There may be a GUI thing you can use instead, I'm not sure. If it says "stopped" you can restart it with "service cupsd restart" (who says Linux is too hard?).

If it won't restart, or won't stay running, you'll have to check the CUPS log for errors and find out what's up there.
AOO4/LO5 • Linux • Fedora 23
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BlownCPU
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Re: Print button is grayed out

Post by BlownCPU »

Hi,

Thanks for you responses:

Foxcole: I'm using OpenOffice with Oo modules...calc.. etc and all of them have the grayed out button. Also Evince for PDF files doesn't print either.

Acknak: cups is working as I can print normally from Firefox, Thunderbird, gedit... you name it it all prints but not from Oo which is a killer for me as I have lots of work to print :(

I really, really need help on this one !!

Cheers,

BlownCPU
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Hagar Delest
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Re: Print button is grayed out

Post by Hagar Delest »

Please read the Survival Guide for the forum. No multi posting (I've deleted you other thread). And we still need your OOo version.

Have you tried to rename your OOo user profile (~/.openoffice.org2)?
LibreOffice 7.6.2.1 on Xubuntu 23.10 and 7.6.4.1 portable on Windows 10
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BlownCPU
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Re: Print button is grayed out

Post by BlownCPU »

Hagar,

Yes, I know about the multi posts, sorry, I thought there would be a bigger crowd watching the posts in "Beginners" as this is strictly not just a Writer problem but it happens in all Oo applications.

My version: 2.3.0 and the package is: openoffice.org-2.3.0-6.11.fc8, I'm using Linux Fedora 8.

I do have good news, if I press the print icon in the top bar I can print but it means I can't control the quality of the print or how many copies or pages.

I have now tried a different printer and still no luck. I have also changed USB ports and no luck.

My CUPS error & access logs do not show anything out of the ordinary.

I don't quite follow what you mean by renaming the directory (~/.openoffice.org2) ? What is the purpose of this?

I have a screen shot attached.

Cheers,

BlownCPU
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Grayed out Print button
Grayed out Print button
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Hagar Delest
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Re: Print button is grayed out

Post by Hagar Delest »

So I move your thread in the Linux forum.

Renaming the OOo user profile will make OOo create a new one with blank new configuration files. Perhaps one of them is damaged.
LibreOffice 7.6.2.1 on Xubuntu 23.10 and 7.6.4.1 portable on Windows 10
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BlownCPU
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[Solved] Print button is grayed out

Post by BlownCPU »

Problem solved !! :D

In /var/log/cups/error_log I found this error and had to think what was going on.
Unable to bind socket for address 192.168.1.3:631 - Cannot assign requested address
So I did a bit of reading and found out that programs (not all) send print jobs to localhost to port 631.

It should be binding to localhost from what I have been reading and the log should look like this:
Listening to ::1:631 on fd 4...
Listening to 127.0.0.1:631 on fd 5...
Listening to /var/run/cups/cups.sock on fd 6...
So I had a look at my hosts file /etc/hosts and found the following code:
# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
192.168.1.3 mylinux localhost.localdomain localhost
::1 localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6

it should have been and is now:
# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
localhost mylinux localhost.localdomain localhost
::1 localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6
All print jobs print and no grayed out buttons :D

I do still have one other error in the log, it doesn't seem to affect anything but would be nice to get rid of it, mylinux is the name of my machine, this is the error:
Unable to find IP address for server name "mylinux"!
I don't understand why from one day to the next the hosts file changed but I have now corrected it and it all works fine.
Thanks for everybody's input, hope this helps folks further down the line.

Cheers,

Blown CPU
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foxcole
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Re: [Solved] Print button is grayed out

Post by foxcole »

Great summary, and good job solving the problem! Glad to hear it's fixed. Thanks for that post, I am sure it will help others.
Cheers!
---Fox

OOo 3.2.0 Portable, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
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