ThomasH Reporter
	Description • 12 years ago

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:13.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/13.0.1
Build ID: 20120614114901

Steps to reproduce:

Changed my network printer, deleted old printers. Attempted to print a page using Firefox. 


Actual results:

Spotted a list of old, non existing printers in the print dialog, which I do not know to remove. Checked into about:config and to my astonishment I found HUNDREDS of printer entries, all about non existing printers. I cannot find any way to remove them all in bulk. I would be glad to send a list of these to you, if I only knew how to copy these into a text file.
For example, the valid printer is :

printer_Brother_HL-2040_on_DPR1260_(dlink-9f2a09_USB_Port_4)_(Copy_1)

But I see huge sets of entries for old experiments with Post_2, Port_1, also for \\node\Brother_HL-2040 another complete set. 



Expected results:

I should have seen only only set of entries about the default printer in my print dialog. I should have had a possibility to remove old printers expresis verbis.

	vulcain
	Comment 1 • 12 years ago

I confirm on Ubuntu 12.041 on Firefox 17.0.1 or on 20.0a1 (2013-01-04) 

With CUPS(http://localhost:631/printers/) i have only one printer (same one on Ubuntu configuration) : HP_Officejet_6500_e709n

but in about:support i could find a lot of old printer (see attachement). I have the same list if i check print.tmp in about:config

	vulcain
	Comment 2 • 12 years ago

May block Bug 594464 and change to
Product: 	Toolkit
Component: 	General

	Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]
	Comment 3 • 12 years ago

(In reply to vulcain from comment #2)
> May block Bug 594464 and change to

No, this bug here is unrelated to Bug 594464. If Firefox has these about:config prefs set, then it's expected/intended that they should be listed in about:support.  (The lack of whitespace in your attachment is due to bug 675062, as it looks like you discovered.)

They may make about:support harder to read, but so will any sufficiently-large set of about:config customizations.

(Clarifying summary to indicate the behavior that's being requested in this bug.)

	Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]
	Comment 4 • 12 years ago

(In reply to ThomasH from comment #0)
> Spotted a list of old, non existing printers in the print dialog

If you're still seeing printers in the print _dialog_, then that's probably a system issue, not a Firefox issue.  I believe we query the OS, at time of print-dialog-creation, for the list of available printers, and stale about:config entries shouldn't have any effect on that.

If you or anyone is still seeing this, and it doesn't happen in other programs (e.g. Notepad), please follow up about that... that'd be very odd.

	ThomasH Reporter
	Comment 5 • 11 years ago

If there are so many comments confirming the issue, why this bug is still UNCONFIRMED?

	Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]
	Comment 6 • 11 years ago

There is only one comment, confirming part of the issue (comment 1, which mentions stale about:config listings, but doesn't mention whether those actually affect the printer dialog).

And that about:config behavior isn't 100% clear (to me, at least) to be buggy -- e.g. if you've printed on printer before, it's not unreasonable that we'd cache the preferences you used on that printer, so that the next time you use that printer, it's set up the way you like it. (Maybe after some threshold of time we could prune it, but that doesn't seem like a huge deal.)

Could you reply to my question in comment 4, about the more-clearly-buggy part of the original bug report? In particular -- do you still see not-connected-at-all printers in your print _dialog_? (and can you confirm that they aren't listed in other applications' print dialogs?)

	vulcain
	Comment 7 • 11 years ago

Apologize don't answer you, Daniel.

(In reply to Daniel Holbert [:dholbert] from comment #6)
> There is only one comment, confirming part of the issue (comment 1, which
> mentions stale about:config listings, but doesn't mention whether those
> actually affect the printer dialog).
I confirm that does not affect printer dialog of Firefox (who is the same of Gimp, Eye of GNOME, ...) and the similar with LiberOffice's Printer dialog.

I see all connected printer in printer dialog. But i think that about:config give a very big list of old printer. May be a list in about:printers (like about:plugins) should be better and more readable.

	vulcain
	Comment 8 • 11 years ago

Printer dialog in Firefox

	vulcain
	Comment 9 • 11 years ago

Printer dialog in LibreOffice

	Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]
	Comment 10 • 11 years ago

OK, thanks -- that's good to know. So the other part of comment 0 (old printers showing up in print dialog) no longer reproduces, and this bug is just a feature-request for providing a way to flush the cached about:config settings for old printers.

So -- what's the motivation for wanting to flush these settings? Is it a privacy concern? Or making the about:config listing easier to browse through? Or something else? (Note that we have a fairly high bar for adding new menu items / buttons to the UI.)

(For power users such as yourself, also note that manually editing prefs.js is always an option, as described at http://superuser.com/questions/393897/in-firefox-how-to-delete-multiple-aboutconfig-entries-at-the-same-time . That, or a custom Add-on, would be two ways to address this use-case that don't require adding a new button / menuitem on everyone in the world's Firefox.)

	vulcain
	Comment 11 • 11 years ago

@  Daniel Holbert: I don't know Matthias Versen's motivation. But for me it's to have a better readable about:config.

When i help user on forum and suggest them to give me the copy of about:config for to know all their plugin, their add-on or the version or their graphic card, all of this information are flooded by a big list of old printer. And it's very irritant when you must explain to a beginner to make a copy inside [code] [/code].

As you see, it 's no for me but for the other i will be helped.

That why i thinks a about:printers should be great.

	Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]
	Comment 12 • 11 years ago

(In reply to vulcain from comment #11)
> @  Daniel Holbert: I don't know Matthias Versen's motivation. But for me
> it's to have a better readable about:config.

Or rather: you're really looking to avoid having these clutter up about:support's summary of about:config settings. (based on the rest of your comment and based on comment 1)

We could address that use-case by just separating these prefs into their own printer-specific section of about:support (which would indeed be a helper-bug for Bug 594464, as you'd suggested in comment 1).  I think that's a bit orthogonal to what the original reporter was asking for here, so it might be worth spinning off a separate bug to do that.

	Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]
	Comment 13 • 11 years ago

(In reply to Daniel Holbert [:dholbert] from comment #12)
> We could address that use-case by just separating these prefs into their own
> printer-specific section of about:support (which would indeed be a
> helper-bug for Bug 594464, as you'd suggested in comment 1).  I think that's
> a bit orthogonal to what the original reporter was asking for here, so it
> might be worth spinning off a separate bug to do that.

I've just filed bug 951420 to cover this ^^, BTW.

	Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)
	Comment 14 • 9 years ago

I couldn't find a duplicate for this, so confirming