PDF file is damanged - attempting to reconstruct xref table

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

I get this error, too, but I do not get complaints from Ghostscript or evince if I call bannertopdf on the command line and try to display the resulting file.

There is also the cupsfilter utility to debug filter chains, but using this I did not get "PDF file is damaged - attempting to reconstruct xref table...", only in a real CUPS queue environment.

Sorry, now I get it with cupsfilter. Following command line reproduces it:

cupsfilter -P Photosmart-C8100-series.ppd -m application/vnd.cups-pdf -e /usr/share/cups/data/testprint > out.pdf

PPD file is attached.

To get the output of bannertopdf, run

cupsfilter -P Photosmart-C8100-series.ppd -m application/pdf -e /usr/share/cups/data/testprint > bannertopdf-out.pdf

Poppler uses ftell(3) to find out byte offsets for the xref table. CUPS makes all filters write to stdout, which cannot support ftell.

It didn't occur when calling `bannertopdf [args] > out.pdf` manually, because in this case stdout will be dup()ed to the file (hence supporting ftell again). That's why I didn't notice this while developing.

Fixed in r25.

Great, thank you.

Testing and upstreamizing ...

Works. Upstreamized to the cups-filters BZR on OpenPrinting.

I am getting this message on Precise when trying to print the testpage on Kyocera FS-1130D (default built-in driver).

This bug was fixed in the package cups-filters - 1.0.4-1

---------------
cups-filters (1.0.4-1) unstable; urgency=low

  [ Till Kamppeter ]
  * New upstream release
    - cups-filters 1.0.4 release
    - texttopdf: Fall back to altermative fonts via fontconfig if the
      FreeMono TrueType fonts are not installed (Closes: #495598,
      Closes: #662660).
    - bannertopdf: Fix off-by-one error in page duplication
    - bannertopdf: Put indirect references to streams into the page's
      contents
    - bannertopdf: Let byte offsets for the Xref table of the PDF output
      being determined correctly also when the output goes to stdout
      (LP: #939735).
    - bannertopdf: Output multiple copies of the test page if duplex
      and/or N-up is chosen, to let the test page appear on all possible
      positions of the sheet (LP: #939530).
    - bannertopdf: Scale test page template to fit the job's page size,
      get and display full page geometry information, draw the frame which
      marks the printable area 1pt smaller, to assure that it gets completely
      visible (LP: #921073).
  * debian/local/default-testpage.pdf: Added missing "Q" operator to the end of
    the page. This broke N-up printing with pdftopdf (LP: #939530).
  * debian/control: Added explicit build dependency on libfontconfig1-dev.
    (Closes: #661127)
  * debian/control: Changed font dependency (for texttopdf) to "ttf-freefont |
    fonts-liberation | ttf-dejavu" instead of only "ttf-freefont"
    (Closes: #495598, Closes: #662660).

  [ Martin Pitt ]
  * debian/control: Build against libpng-dev, with an alternative to the older
    libpng12-dev. (Closes: #662295)
  * debian/control: Prefer building against libtiff5-dev if available, falling
    back to libtiff-dev.
  * debian/control, debian/rules: Move from hardening-wrapper to using
    dpkg-buildflags. Bump dpkg-dev build dependency to (>= 1.16.1~) for this.
  * debian/copyright: Update Format header for official copyright format 1.0.
  * debian/control: Bump Standards-Version to 3.9.3.
  * debian/rules: Drop LC_MESSAGES setting, leftover from cups.
  * debian/control: Bump libcupsimage2-dev build dependency to ensure to build
    against a version which does not conflict on the libtiff?-dev build
    dependency.
 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Wed, 07 Mar 2012 14:36:49 +0100