AppImage: system printers not available in print dialogue

Workaround is exporting to PDF and print. (suggested by the original title)

Came up again https://musescore.org/en/node/297866#comment-962661

Again in https://musescore.org/en/node/298085

Because my printer is out of order, I can't check it. But by using AppImages I notice, that I can select the printer with 3.3.0 inside the printer dialogue, but not with version 3.3.2 and 3.3.3 (I didn't check 3.3.1 nor 3.3.4). (OS: OpenSuse)

IIRC 3.3.0 and 3.3.[1-4] use a differnt Qt version 5.12 vs 5.9, which might explain this?

Edit: actually the change was from Qt 5.9.3 to 5.9.8

On linux mint 18.3 or 19.2 64-bit.

Run appimage v3.3.3 or 3.3.4; attempt to print a score, or find the print dialogue under edit|prefs|shortcuts. Only the inbuilt print to pdf option is visible, none of the system printers is available.

v3.2.3 works OK.

A local build of 3.3.4 on the mint 19.2 system also works OK. So the problem seems to lie with the distributed appimages for 3.3.x

Obvious workaround is to use the inbuilt pdf "printer", then print the resulting pdf.

So nothing to do with Mint Linux
And the more obvious workaround is to export to Pdf and then print that, Pdf printers often don't work well

Just installed a distribution package of MS 3.3.4 for OpenSuse Leap 15.0 and I can select my printer driver (by using QT 5.9.4). But it seems not to work with the AppImage (QT 5.9.8).

And not even with the actual nightly eb66794 (Qt 5.9.8).

I doesn't also seems to work with Shoogle's unofficial build a6ff5b1 (QT 5.12.4).

I don't actually have printing set up so I can't really verify much, but if I run a self-built executable using Qt 5.9.8, I do see the PDF CUPS printer I attempted to install (in addition to Print to File), whereas with the AppImage I see only Print to File.

For completeness, the version of QT I used was the ubuntu repo build of QT 5.9.5. (Apologies for omitting this.)

From what I can see, inside the "plugin" folder of the AppImage the "printsupport" folder and relative library are missing.
I think it is a bug of linuxdeploy (with qt-plugin), which is used to build the AppImage since 39ef4d5317568f483
see also my previous comment https://musescore.org/en/node/280926#comment-884383 in particular the point about the printsupport folder (however, all other points are valid as well).
I had tried to play with EXTRA_QT_PLUGINS variable, see https://github.com/linuxdeploy/linuxdeploy-plugin-qt#environment-variab… , but I had no success.

Such library should probably be manually added to the AppImage folder before packaging.

Great information, thanks! So, I wonder if there is some sort of workaround for the existing AppImages, then - a way to force them to use a locally-installed copy of that folder? Or is that what you were trying to do with EXTRA_QT_PLUGINS?

I think so. With the new AppImage version 2, you can extract the AppImage content to a local folder by using the option --appimage-extract ( https://docs.appimage.org/user-guide/run-appimages.html#extract-the-con… ); you can then locally copy the "printsupport" folder with the .so file in the "plugin" folder and locally run the AppImage from the folder.

That's great! I don't actually have a working printer on my Linux system anyhow (si I export to PDF on Google Drive then print from another device), but hopefully this will help others while we sort this out.

Mmmhhh, i just read this thread a few times but Í think I am too stupid to find out the solution or workaround for this issue. I understood that I have to extract something and put it in a folder.
May I ask someone to give a more detailled and structered information?

@ Thauxulon :
Ciao.
The procedure is a little involved.
Here are the steps:
1- Run the AppImage with "--appimage-extract" argument, i.e.
./MuseScore-3.3.4-x86_64.AppImage --appimage-extract
It extracts the AppImage content into the folder squashfs-root/
2- Download the archive https://s3.amazonaws.com/utils.musescore.org/qt598.zip
This is the Qt version used to build the AppImage. Extract from the zip bundle the folder plugins/printsupport which contains libcupsprintersupport.so and copy such printsupport folder (and its content) inside the plugin folder squashfs-root/plugins
3- Now you can run the "patched" AppImage with:
cd squashfs-root
./AppRun

Please let us know if this workaround solves the printing problem.
Ciao,
ABL

One possible solution:
https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/pull/5559

then you need to locate that MuseScore-3.3.4-x86_64.AppImage, of find out how it is called on your machine

@Steve Walker :
Indeed, I wrote that instructions for the latest AppImage and for 64bit operating system, but you need to adapt it to the MuseScore 3.3.x AppImage you are using, like this:
./[Name of your AppImage] --appimage-extract
where [Name of your AppImage] is for example MuseScore-3.3.4-x86_64.AppImage for MuseScore 3.3.4, and MuseScore-3.3.3-x86_64.AppImage for MuseScore 3.3.3, et cetera. And remember to cd to the folder where you put your AppImage before running that instruction ;-)

Edit: I don't think you are using a 32bit AppImage, since the last 32bit AppImage I can find is the one for MuseScore 2.1.

see https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/pull/5607
The resulting AppImage can get downloaded from https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mYysvSijbpmc8dvKxfNyrTX53SD5wTZw for testing

Fixed in branch master, commit 21ba2316c2

_fix #297719: AppImage: add more libraries

New files bundled in AppImage:

• libcupsprintersupport.so - Qt printsupport plugin
• libnss3.so - a fallback for Chromebook devices
• findlibs - tiny C program to check system libraries_

Fixed in branch master, commit 8eb74bbe41

_Merge pull request #5607 from shoogle/appimage-libraries

fix #297719: AppImage: add more libraries_

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.