Zebra ZP 505 prints blank page

[MaffooClock]

Continuing from OpenPrinting/cups#265...

So, I got LPrint setup (as Zebra ZPL 4-inch/203dpi/Direct-Thermal) and can now respond to @michaelrsweet's inquiry:

I'd be interested to know if LPrint has the same issue with the ZP505...

Didn't work 😕. Only this time, it spit out several blank labels before suddenly reducing speed on the last label, making sounds like it was actually printing, but that last label came out blank, too. Then the status LED just blinked red, which according to the documentation means "stopped," and the explanations offered are "media out" or "printhead open," neither of which applies.

Cycling power turns the LED to green flashing, indicating paused. Pressing feed correctly ejects exactly one label (indicating to me that the calibration is correct), and the printer returns to idle status.

This happened with the "Print Test Page" function, with the corresponding job showing "completed" (no errors, that I can see). I tried to print a PNG label from my iPhone, but it (the phone, not LPrint) hung on "Waiting..." before I cancelled it.

I understand that the ZP 500 series are marketed as "designed and sold exclusively for FedEx Shipping Applications only," but I have no clue what the differences might actually be. Could it be a proprietary extension of ZPL? As noted in the linked issue, printing in EPL seemed to work (although the product page does mention "the EPL Version for Europe and Asia only", if that makes any difference).

[MaffooClock]

Switched to using the EPL driver via Zebra EPL Page Mode 4-inch/203dpi/Direct-Thermal and was able to "Print Test Page" successfully. However, printing from iPhone causes iOS Print Summary to hang at "Waiting," but I'm considering that to be an unrelated issue for now.

[MaffooClock]

...printing from iPhone causes iOS Print Summary to hang at "Waiting"

I rebooted both the iPhone and the Raspberry Pi running LPrint, and am now able to print shipping labels (tested JPEG, PNG, and PDF) via EPL.

I'll stop spamming this issue now that I've pretty much addressed the question about LPrint + ZP 505 😁