Brother QL-720NW, printing labels using CUPS & Ubuntu

Question

I'm trying to get my Brother QL-720NW label printer working from an Ubuntu server. I'll briefly describe the process so far, and where I'm stuck.

First I installed CUPS and LPR and cupswrapper drivers from Brothers website, and now my QL-720NW shows up in the CUPS web interface. I set the default media size to fit my label(29x90mm). I clicked "Test print page" on the QL-720NW and it says "Sending data to printer." a few seconds, and then disappears and changing state to Idle, Accepting Jobs, Not Shared, Server Default. But my printer does nothing, not even a led light blinking.

My cups/error_log looks like this. I have googled the AddProfile failed error, and found someone suggesting it is a bug in Ubuntu 12.10, but I've also read that Arch users have had the same error, so I'm not sure. And the Uknown directive SystemGroup error is just a harmless error according to this site.

E [23/Apr/2013:12:20:47 +0200] Unknown directive SystemGroup on line 18 of /etc/cups/cupsd.conf.
W [23/Apr/2013:12:20:47 +0200] AddProfile failed: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod:No such interface `org.freedesktop.ColorManager' on object at path /org/freedesktop/ColorManager/devices/cups_QL_720NW

When I run lpstat -tl after trying to print a test page or a text file using lp test.txt, it says it's sending data to the printer. But the printer does nothing.

# lpstat -tl
scheduler is running
system default destination: QL-720NW
device for QL-720NW: usb://Brother/QL-720NW?serial=000K2Z658058
QL-720NW accepting requests since Tue 23 Apr 2013 12:45:56 PM CEST
printer QL-720NW is idle.  enabled since Tue 23 Apr 2013 12:45:56 PM CEST
    Sending data to printer.

So, does anyone have any suggestions where to go from here? Is there any other log files that might give me a clue of whats wrong?

Answer 1

I finally got it to print on my Ubuntu system. The problem seemed to be that the drivers from Brother is not 64bit compatible, and I was using a 64bit version of Ubuntu.

I tried on Debian first, after learning from @sampi that he got it to work on Debian. When installing the drivers I got an error message, which I didn't get on Ubuntu, suggesting a 32/64bit issue. So after installing the ia32-libs packages it worked on Debian. I then tried installing a 32bit version of Ubuntu on my server, and now the printer did work.

But I can only get the printer to work through wifi(both on Debian and Ubuntu). No success with the USB cable, but that's not an issue for me.

Answer 2

I was able to get 64-bit Ubuntu working with the official QL-720NW drivers using their work-around:

http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/bsc/public_s/id/linux/en/faq_prn.html#f00081

apt-get install cups cups-bsd
apt-get install ia32-libs
dpkg -i --force-architecture ql720nwlpr-1.0.1-1.i386.deb
dpkg -i --force-architecture ql720nwcupswrapper-1.0.1-1.i386.deb
cp /usr/lib/cups/filter/brlpdwrapper* /usr/lib64/cups/filter
cp /usr/lib/cups/filter/brlpdwrapper* /usr/lib64/cups/filter

My Linux distro (uname -a):

Linux 3.2.0-40-virtual #64-Ubuntu SMP Mon Mar 25 21:42:18 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Answer 3

I have used a QL-720NW with Debian since September. Using first the QL-580N driver & later, once it got released, the QL-720NW driver. Prior to buying the printer I did contact brother support who, within a very helpful response, told me that the printer worked as a network printer with the older product's driver, but not over USB.

Given that you do not explicitly state that you need to print via USB, I suggest you try connecting the printer to your network & reconfigure cups to use that connection instead.

Answer 4

FWIW: On Debian testing, I just installed the drivers from the Brother site (version 1.0.1 for both) and the QL-720nw printed via USB with no issues. I didn't even have to force anything (I already had multiarch installed to support other stupid 32-bit-only software), nor use any workaround. I haven't yet tried to use it on a network.