printing .ashx file from a website

[xenios]

Using LMDE/Squeeze, a friend logged in to a bank's website to print a statement. She opened the statement, clicked Print, and after printing the first of three pages the printer stopped/froze... couldn't cancel the job, couldn't quit the browser and couldn't logout or reboot through the Menu. She shut it down with the power button.

When I got there, the system booted okay and CUPS was running, but the printer icons were missing. I was unable to stop or start the server through the terminal, or connect to the server through the GUI tools or browser. Also, a message kept popping up saying the system was running out of disk space.

For a vanilla desktop install, I'd set up a 10GB root partition. The disk space issue turned out to be 20 or so cached print files and two of them were large: 2.6GB and 3.4GB. After deleting those files the root partition was back down to using 2.9GB. The printer issue was resolved by purging and reinstalling all the CUPS pkgs.

Rebooted and ran into another problem: the wired keyboard and wireless mouse didn't work, both USB. I unplugged/plugged them back in and that got them working. Booted to Windows to make sure it wasn't a hardware problem and had to unplug/plug to get them to work. Booted back to LMDE, had the same problem but unplugging/plugging them didn't resolve it. Booted to recovery, logged in as root and entered startx... the keyboard and mouse worked. Dropped back to the console, logged in as user and entered startx... no keyboard, no mouse. The keyboard/mouse worked when back in Windows.

From the CUPS logs and searching, she was printing an ashx file, an ASP.NET Web Handler file. Which I assume is supported by the mono pkgs. I searched for Linux .ashx printing issues but found web server stuff; didn't find any issues related to a desktop system printing an aspx file from a website.

Anyone have experience printing an online .ashx file? If it glitched the system, how was it resolved? If not, I'm asking for ideas.

I'm going there Friday to either fix the problem or reinstall the system. Can't help wondering if, like fixing the printing and then finding the keyboard/mouse glitched, some other problem might show up. I'm not familiar with Gnome and don't know if the keyboard/mouse issue is in /etc, /home's dot files or somewhere else... just want to get everything back to default settings.

Appreciate any help with the keyboard/mouse and, if possible, suggestions for printing .aspx web files.

Thanks.

[DrHu]

Probably more to do with web page site than anything else; some research may help..

web pages printing, all pages ?
http://www.howtogeek.com/?post_type=post&p=60744

http://www.signvideo.com/prnt-wb-pgs.htm
http://www.pcworld.com/article/185391/m ... perly.html
http://www.computing.net/answers/window ... 63355.html

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/Wind ... -questions

I searched for Linux .ashx printing issues but found web server stuff; didn't find any issues related to a desktop system printing an aspx file from a website.

That windows file is likely to be problematic, even on a windows OS (missing the right component parts!)
http://www.computing.net/answers/window ... /2386.html
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fileexten ... hxfile.htm
--a link in one of the posts..

[xenios]

Thanks for responding, DrHu. I see I should have clarified.

There's no problem with LMDE printing anything else... an html web page, a pdf file opened in a web page or on the HD, text and spreadsheets using OpenOffice. The issue was only with the .ashx file format, and viewing it on the bank's site was not the problem. The CUPS problem came up only when trying to print it. At least, that's my assumption from what happened.

Of the links you posted, I ran across the two specific to aspx; they are about the format, how to view it and why they're starting to replace pdf files on servers... neither mentioned problems with printing or Linux (unless I missed it).

The printer issue has been resolved but with a caveat: don't try to print any ashx bank statements. FWIW, she's been printing those statements from Windows 7/Firefox for quite a while without issue. One possibility I haven't tried is saving an ashx file to a pdf format. A safe workaround, for now, without rebooting, might be setting up a Windows VM in VBox and printing the statements from there.

At this point, though, the more pressing concern is getting the keyboard and mouse working again... kinda hard to log in. Appreciate any suggestions you can offer.