Public bug reported:
I have an ipp/AirPrint capable printer (Brother MFC L2710DW) which
automatically got added by Ubuntu (I'm on XUbuntu).
Printing larger documents will easily use multiple gigabytes of ram. If the
document is large enough this makes printing impossible or _very_ slow, as the
process either gets killed or starts swapping.
By watching htop and /proc/$pid/exe I was able to determine that the filter at
fault seems to be /usr/lib/cups/filter/pdftoraster.
Indeed, manually calling pdftoraster with similar arguments as passed by cups
(taken from /proc/$pid/cmdline) I can observe the same memory use behaviour.
Memory used seems to be linear in the number of pages and will reach around 7GB
for a 48 page test-document.
I am not sure if the resolution should be to fix the memory usage of
pdftoraster or to make cups select a different filter chain. I describe
below how I first tried to debug the issue with the help of the Debian
wiki on cupsfilter and wasn't able to get the same behaviour because
cupsfilter would select a different filter chain (involving gstoraster
instead of pdftoraster).
For my current situation it would also be nice to know if there's some
way for me to work around the issue until it's fixed by printing via the
filter chain selected by cupsfilter. Should adding the printer manually
via the xfce interface or the cups webinterface work?
Please let me know if you need more information.
## Further info:
$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS
Release: 20.04
$ apt-cache policy cups-filters
cups-filters:
Installed: 1.27.4-1
Candidate: 1.27.4-1
Version table:
*** 1.27.4-1 500
500 http://at.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/main amd64 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
In the system print settings the printer has the device URI
"implicitclass://Brother_MFC_L2710DW_series/".
>From watching htop I get the impression that somewhere along the way that
>changes to "ipp://Brother%20MFC-L2710DW%20series._ipp._tcp.local/" (that's the
>argv[0] of the offending process, the binary for which is
>/usr/lib/cups/filter/pdftoraster).
I am attaching test pdfs which exhibit the described memory use when used with
pdftoraster like this:
/usr/bin/time -v /usr/lib/cups/filter/pdftoraster 99 manu sometitle 1
'PageSize=A4 output-format=apple-raster Resolution=600dpi' testdoc/test48.pdf >
pdftorast.out
The memory use and timings I get are in memory_use.txt.
Information about the processes involved and their arguments when printing is
in watching_printing.txt.
## Trying to debug with cupsfilter:
I also tried to reproduce the issue by following the steps on the debian wiki
about cupsfilter:
https://wiki.debian.org/CUPSFilter
Interestingly, I could not get cupsfilter to select the same filter chain.
I am not sure which ppd I should be using, though. I tried with
/etc/cups/ppd/Brother_MFC_L2710DW_series.ppd and with a ppd generated by
driverless cat 'ipp://Brother%20MFC-L2710DW%20series._ipp._tcp.local/'
The former only outputs pdf:
$ /usr/sbin/cupsfilter -p Brother_MFC_L2710DW_series.ppd -m printer/foo -o
number-up=2 testdoc/test96.pdf -e --list-filters
pdftopdf
The latter uses gstoraster:
$ /usr/sbin/cupsfilter -p driverless.ppd -m printer/foo -o number-up=2
testdoc/test96.pdf -e --list-filters
pdftopdf
gstoraster
rastertopwg
Running either without the --list-filters option finishes reasonably
fast and doesn't use excessive ram.
** Affects: cups-filters (Ubuntu)
Importance: Undecided
Status: New
** Attachment added: "Memory use and timing of pdftoraster"
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1920190/+attachment/5478291/+files/memory_use.txt
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1920190
Title:
When printing to ipp printer, multiple GB of ram are used. pdftoraster
and/or filter chain selection at fault?
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