Brothers DLL2300D Slow Printing

My Brothers HLL2300D printer started printing very slowly (taking a long time to start printing).  Sometimes it would take up to 10 to 15 minutes per page to print.  When I installed it that was not the case.  Before I tell you how I fixed mine let me say that there are many factors that may affect this problem, i.e. (different CUPPS configurations, printer types, installed software or unique hardware) this is just what fixed my situation. 

My setup:
I have my printer (Brother HLL2300D) connected to an IO Gear Print Server (basically a TCP/IP connection device, 10/100 network port on one side and a USB port on the other).  The printer is connected to the USB port and the 10/100 Network port is hardwired to my router.

I'm running Ubuntu 16.04.3, this is a screen shot of the IO GEAR print server web interface and I installed my Brothers HLL2300D using this method.

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THE FIX.

To fix my issue I just added a new printer to my Ubuntu 16.04 install using the following method:

Open your SYSTEM SETTING then PRINTERS then click on the ADD BUTTON.  Now click on NETWORK in the drop down list and finally select APPSOCKET/HP JETDIRECT.  You should see something that looks like this.

Under HOST put the IP ADDRESS of your printer (we're just doing a networked printer).  Under PORT put 9100 and the CONNECTION section should read APPSOCKET/HP JETDIRECT.  Click on the FORWARD BUTTON.


You will now see this screen.  Just select your printer manufacturer and click on the FORWARD BUTTON.

You will now see this screen.  Just pick your printers model number and click on the FORWARD BUTTON. If you are installing a Brothers HLL2300D cancel out of all this and follow these instructions first so that your model's drivers will show up here.

You will now see this screen.  Just fill in the three block with whatever you want for labeling your printer.  When finished just click on the APPLY BUTTON

If you did everything correctly you should now see a new printer with the name you gave it (I changed mine's name to HLL2300Dnew.  By RIGHT CLICKING on that printer and selecting PROPERTIES you will see the following screen (your's should look like mine except your printers IP address will be different from mine and I've blacked out the last digits of that IP address)

Try printing a test page and see if it starts prints quicker.  If the PRINT TEST PAGE is grayed out, close the properties window and RIGHT CLICK on your new printer again and make sure the ENABLED is checked, if not check it and try the PRINT TEST PAGE again.  You may have to reset your computer to finish this but I didn't.


NOTE:  I think selecting the APPSOCKET/HP JETDIRECT is what fixed my problem or maybe it was just installing a new printer, I don't know but it worked for me.  If this worked for you, you may want to set your new printer to your DEFAULT. 

apt-get update - stops at "0 [ Connecting to us.archive.ubuntu.com ]"

I've been trying to update my UBUNTU 16.04 and it kept hanging up and not completing the updates. So I opened a TERMINAL window and typed in the following command, which is one of the two commands you use to update Ubuntu from the command line.

    sudo apt-get update

When pressing ENTER after typing in this command you will see a list of software sources that Ubuntu is checking to see if there are any updates you need for the software you have installed and there will be a percentage completed number at each line.  Well I noticed that mine was getting stuck at the following line and kept reading 0%

0 [Connecting to us.archive.ubuntu.com]

Without the list of what software you need to download and install you can't use the second command to finish your updates;  sudo apt-get upgrade

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To fix this you have to edit the gai.conf file.  To do this open a TERMINAL window and type;

sudo gedit /etc/gai.conf

This will launch GEDIT and open the gia.conf file.  Now you have to be CAREFUL here because there is another line that looks almost like the one you have to change, you have to change just ONE line, you have to find the line;

     #precedence ::ffff:0:0/96  100

now just delete the # which uncomments it.  Change it to;

     precedence ::ffff:0:0/96  100

Now save the file and your done.

NOTE:  There is another line that reads #precedence ::ffff:0:0/96  10 DO NOT CHANGE THIS LINE.  You are looking for the line that ends with a 100.


In case you are wondering this what is causing the problem.  This is from the Ask Ubuntu article where I found the solution.

"ISPs are starting to setup an internal IPv6 network in preparation for eventually connecting to the IPv6 internet. As a result, servers in this network now try to connect to *.ubuntu.com via its IPv6 address by default when running apt-get. Solution: uncommenting precedence ::ffff:0:0/96 100 allows requests to prefer IPv4"

Linking AppImages to a File Type

I installed CURA 4.3 on Ubuntu 16.04 and it only comes as an AppImage file.  I don't mind the concept of AppImage's  "single file contains everything needed to run the program" but I couldn't get it to associate with the .STL file format.   It wouldn't come up as one of the OPEN WITH options after right clicking on an .STL file.

To fix this you will need to open GEDIT or your favorite text editor (I use GEANY) then;

1. Create a new blank file.

2. Copy and paste the following into this new blank file.

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Cura
Comment=Cura 3D slicing application.
Exec={INSERT PATH TO APPIMAGE} %F
Type=Application
Icon={INSERT PATH TO ICON}
Categories=Graphics; 
MimeType=image/CURA;

3.  Replace the {INSERT PATH TO APPIMAGE} with the path to your AppImage file and the name of your AppImage file.  The COMMENT and NAME should be replaced with info and description name of your AppImage file (the NAME is what will appear in your OPEN WITH list when you right click on a file in Nautilus.

The {INSERT PATH TO APPIMAGE} line looks like this in mine:
Exec=/home/jeff/AppImages/Ultimaker_Cura-4.3.0.AppImage %F

*** NOTE:  The official recommendation by the AppImage developers is to create an extra directory, ${HOME}/Applications/ (or ${HOME}/.local/bin/ or ${HOME}/bin/) and store all AppImages there.  But as you can see I did not follow this recommendation. You can put AppImages anywhere and they'll work, even USB drives.

4.  Replace the {INSERT PATH TO ICON} with the path to the icon image you want to associate with your AppImage program.

This line looks like this in mine:
Icon=/home/jeff/Pictures/Icons/Cura.png

*** NOTE:  I keep all my Icons in this folder to make them easy to find

5.  Save this file to your Downloads directory as a .desktop file, I called mine CURA.DESKTOP.  You can name yours whatever you want but the .desktop part must be there.

6. Now we make your new .desktop file executable by opening Nautilus (Files) and right clicking on your new .desktop file.  Now select the PERMISSION tab and check the "Allow executing file as Program" box.

7.  Now we need to copy your new .desktop file to the /usr/share/applications/ folder.  This has to be done in TERMINAL because of permissions.

    A.  Open a TERMINAL window.
    B.   Then type the following. (Assuming your .desktop file is in Downloads directory)

           cd Downloads

           sudo cp cura.desktop /usr/share/applications/

           * Hit ENTER KEY after each of these two commands and enter your password if asked.

           *** NOTE:  you will need to replace cura.desktop with name of your .desktop file you created in steps 1 - 6 .

         
       

8. After it copies just close the TERMINAL window.

9.  Now we need to edit the mimeapps.list that is locate in your HOME directory under the .config directory.

10.  Open Nautilus (Files) and select VIEW and check SHOW HIDDEN FILES

11.  Now navigate to home/YOURuserNAME/.config/ and open the file mimeapps.list with GEDIT or your favorite text editor.

Mine was located here;
home/jeff/.config/mimeapps.list

12.  Once mimeapps.list is open in your text editor add this line under the section [Added Associations]

image/cura=cura.desktop;

***Note:  Replace cura.desktop with the name of your .desktop file.

13.  Save mimapps.list and close your text editor.

14.  Last step; find an .stl file and right click on it and choose CURA as the default app under OPEN WITH.


I hope this  helps someone out. There might be an easier way but I don't know what it would be.

*** NOTE:  This should work with any file type you would wanted associated with a program.  Basically just replace Cura with your your program and .stl with your file type.  It would be nice if there was a little more integration between AppImages and your OS but I guess that is the point AppImages "one file, run anywhere".  To uninstall AppImages just delete that single AppImage file (and undo all this file association I just showed you :-)

Kernel Panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs.

I was getting an error while running Ubuntu 18.04 in Virtualbox 6.0.  The error "Kernel Panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs...".  The error occurred after a failed system update. 

To fix this I had to pick ADVANCED in the GRUB menu on startup of the virtual and pick a previous working kernel version to boot with.  This booted me with an older version of the kernel but it was functioning. 

I then started a TERMINAL and typed the following two commands:

sudo update-initramfs -u -k VERSION* 

sudo update-grub 

Replace VERSION* with the name of the version giving you the panic error, in my case it was 4.15.0-47-generic.  So my command was: sudo update-initramfs -u -k 4.15.0-47-generic

That's it, you should be able to restart the system and it will boot normally.   If it doesn't here's a link to an article that may provide more help on this topic. LINK HERE And here is a link to the GRUB2 manual.  GRUB2 Manual

NOTE: the 2nd picture is of an older version of GRUB and is only there to give you an idea of what you'll see.  It is not a capture of my screen (I forgot) so this is just a googled image used as an example to aid you.

PUBLIC KEY NOT FOUND - WINE

I was getting the error PUBLIC KEY NOT FOUND for WINE when I tried to update Ubuntu.  To fix it I  ran the following four commands in the Terminal.  Hit ENTER after each command and type in your password when prompted.

wget -nc https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key

sudo apt-key add winehq.key

sudo apt update

sudo apt-get upgrade

This should fix the PUBLIC KEY problem and update your system.  

NOTE:  The first two commands fix the Public Key issue, the last two commands update your software and you can use just them (the last two commands) anytime you want to update your system from the Terminal.