print jobs are held until the VirtualBox guest OS is reboot
- by broiyan
Here is the setup:
VirtualBox 4.1.20 (which the Help window describes as 4.1.12_Ubuntu)
Extension Pack 4.1.20 (for USB support)
Windows 7 Home Premium as a guest operating system on VirtualBox
Ubuntu 12.04 with dist-upgrade's to September 2012 as the host
operating system.
Fuji Xerox DocuPrint P205b, which I believe is a GDI printer,
connected via USB.
The problem is that often print jobs will sit in the print queue and nothing comes out of the printer. The printer status for the first item in the queue will be Printing even though nothing happens. Then upon rebooting Windows, the print jobs get printed, seemingly simultaneous to the rebooting process; that is as Windows reloads.
One way to avoid this problem is to reboot Windows with the printer cable attached, and then submit the print jobs. The print jobs get printed in a timely manner. Perhaps VirtualBox has a problem with USB being plug-n-play and hot pluggable. It's not convenient to have the printer plugged in when Windows boots because: One, this is a laptop, and Two, I may be boot Windows for a purpose other than printing and not anticipate needing to print.
Are there any recommendable fixes for this problem?
