Recently I have struggled a lot to make Novel iPrint client to work on my laptop. I need it to use Follow Me printers in our university(you can take your print form any printer).

Using this tutorial from Novel, I tried to convert the rpm package and install it on Ubuntu 13.04 & 13.10. The post install script from installing generated deb package had a typo which I saw in post install messages and I fixed that. Now I have the client running. To see the client UI I installed cinnamon desktop(because unity does not have system tray and old solutions did'nt work to whitelist Novel clinet). I have iPrint plugin installed on firefox as well(I copied the shared object files to plugin directories).

I try installing printers from provided ipp URL(which lists available printers on the server) with no success. After clicking the printer name I see this:

I have various errors:

• Formerly firefox used to asked my network username/password for installing SSL printer but now it returns this:

iPrint Printer - The printer is currently not available.

However I can install non-SSL version but the printer location is either empty or points to:

file:///dev/null even if I change it to the exact address which I see on working machines still it prints nothing.

I have tried the novel command line tool, iprntcmd to print. It is being installed at:

/opt/novell/iprint/bin/

msadeghi@werkstatt:/opt/novell/iprint/bin$ ./iprntcmd --addprinter ipp://iprint.rz.hs-offenburg.de/ipp/Follow-me\ -\ IPP

iprntcmd v05.04.00

Adding printer ipp://iprint.rz.hs-offenburg.de/ipp/Follow-me - IPP.

Added printer ipp://iprint.rz.hs-offenburg.de/ipp/Follow-me - IPP successfully. It adds the printer with empty location and again no print.

What I found interesting is the log file at ~/.iprint/errors.txt with strange errors which I hope somebody here can understand. When I try to install the SSL printer I receive these logs(note that HP is my local printer and has nothing to do with iprint):

Thu Oct 31 11:02:03 2013
    Trace Info:   iprint.c, line 6690
    Group Info:   IPRINT-lib
    Error Code:   4096 (0x1000)
    User ID:      1000
    Error Msg:    iPrint Lib - Bad URI type supplied (not IPP:, HTTP:, or HTTPS:).
    Debug Msg:    IPRINTInterpretURI for file:///dev/null - Unknown Port Type - file

Thu Oct 31 11:02:03 2013
    Trace Info:   iprint.c, line 6800
    Group Info:   IPRINT-lib
    Error Code:   4096 (0x1000)
    User ID:      1000
    Error Msg:    iPrint Lib - Bad URI type supplied (not IPP:, HTTP:, or HTTPS:).
    Debug Msg:    IPRINTInterpretURI for hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_1018?serial=KP103A1 - No Port type specified

Thu Oct 31 11:02:05 2013
    Trace Info:   iprint.c, line 6690
    Group Info:   IPRINT-lib
    Error Code:   4096 (0x1000)
    User ID:      1000
    Error Msg:    iPrint Lib - Bad URI type supplied (not IPP:, HTTP:, or HTTPS:).
    Debug Msg:    IPRINTInterpretURI for file:///dev/null - Unknown Port Type - file

Thu Oct 31 11:02:05 2013
    Trace Info:   iprint.c, line 6800
    Group Info:   IPRINT-lib
    Error Code:   4096 (0x1000)
    User ID:      1000
    Error Msg:    iPrint Lib - Bad URI type supplied (not IPP:, HTTP:, or HTTPS:).
    Debug Msg:    IPRINTInterpretURI for hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_1018?serial=KP103A1 - No Port type specified

Thu Oct 31 11:02:06 2013
    Trace Info:   mydoreq.c, line 676
    Group Info:   CLIB
    Error Code:   0 (0x0)
    User ID:      1000
    Error Msg:    Success
    Debug Msg:    MyCupsDoFileRequest - httpReconnect failed (0)

Thu Oct 31 11:02:06 2013
    Trace Info:   mydoreq.c, line 1293
    Group Info:   CUPS-IPP
    Error Code:   1282 (0x502)
    User ID:      1000
    Error Msg:    iPrint Printer - The printer is currently not available.
    Debug Msg:    MyCupsDoFileRequest - IPP SERVICE UNAVAILABLE

Thu Oct 31 11:02:06 2013
    Trace Info:   iprint.c, line 6690
    Group Info:   IPRINT-lib
    Error Code:   4096 (0x1000)
    User ID:      1000
    Error Msg:    iPrint Lib - Bad URI type supplied (not IPP:, HTTP:, or HTTPS:).
    Debug Msg:    IPRINTInterpretURI for file:///dev/null - Unknown Port Type - file

Thu Oct 31 11:02:06 2013
    Trace Info:   iprint.c, line 6800
    Group Info:   IPRINT-lib
    Error Code:   4096 (0x1000)
    User ID:      1000
    Error Msg:    iPrint Lib - Bad URI type supplied (not IPP:, HTTP:, or HTTPS:).
    Debug Msg:    IPRINTInterpretURI for hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_1018?serial=KP103A1 - No Port type specified

Thu Oct 31 11:02:08 2013
    Trace Info:   iprint.c, line 6690
    Group Info:   IPRINT-lib
    Error Code:   4096 (0x1000)
    User ID:      1000
    Error Msg:    iPrint Lib - Bad URI type supplied (not IPP:, HTTP:, or HTTPS:).
    Debug Msg:    IPRINTInterpretURI for file:///dev/null - Unknown Port Type - file

Thu Oct 31 11:02:08 2013
    Trace Info:   iprint.c, line 6800
    Group Info:   IPRINT-lib
    Error Code:   4096 (0x1000)
    User ID:      1000
    Error Msg:    iPrint Lib - Bad URI type supplied (not IPP:, HTTP:, or HTTPS:).
    Debug Msg:    IPRINTInterpretURI for hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_1018?serial=KP103A1 - No Port type specified

I should say that my friend can print using the same instructions on CrunchBang easily and another guy on 12.04 LTS but with more struggling. It worked for me on linux mint maya with my old laptop as well.

Is there anybody out there who can help me to solve these problems? I am really disappointed with Novell and our university support.

PS. I had the same problemwith 13.04. No matter if I am within the network or I connect with VPN, I have the same issues.