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

Question

I am trying to get my Brother QL-720NW sticker printer working from an Ubuntu server. I will briefly describe the process so far and where I am stuck.

First I installed CUPS and the LPR and cupswrapper drivers from the Brothers website , and now my QL-720NW appears in the CUPS web interface. I set the default media size for my label (29x90 mm). I clicked the “Test Print Page” on the QL-720NW and it says “Sending Data to the Printer”. after a few seconds, and then the state disappears and changes to Idle, Accepting Jobs, Not Shared, Server Default. But my printer does nothing, even the LED is blinking.

My cups / error _log look like this. I have an error with the AddProfile error, and I found that someone suggested that it was an error in Ubuntu 12.10, but I also read that Arch users had the same errors, so I'm not sure. And the Uknown 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 text file using lp test.txt , it says that it sends 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 on where to go from here? Are there any other log files that could let me know what is wrong?

Answer 1

I finally got it for printing on my Ubuntu system. The problem was that the drivers from Brother are not compatible with the 64-bit version, and I used the 64-bit version of Ubuntu.

I tried Debian first, learning from @sampi that it got it to work on Debian. When installing the drivers, I received an error message that I did not receive on Ubuntu, suggesting a 32/64-bit problem. Therefore, after installing the ia32-libs packages, it worked on Debian. Then I tried installing the 32-bit version of Ubuntu on my server, and now the printer really worked.

But I can get the printer to work over Wi-Fi (both on Debian and Ubuntu). No success with the USB cable, but this is not a problem for me.

Answer 2

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

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 distribution (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 been using QL-720NW with Debian since September. Using the QL-580N driver first, and then, after its release, the QL-720NW driver. Before buying a printer, I turned to my brother for support, who told me in a very useful answer that the printer works as a network printer with an older product driver, but not on USB.

Given that you do not explicitly state that you need to print via USB, I suggest you try connecting the printer to the network and reconfiguring the cups to use this connection.

Answer 4

FWIW: when testing Debian, I just installed the drivers from the Brother website (version 1.0.1 for both) and the QL-720nw, printed via USB, without any problems. I didn’t even need to force something (I already had multi-argy installed to support other stupid 32-bit software), and also do not use workarounds. I have not tried to use it online yet.