Printing International Paypal Mailing Labels Using Java.

Printing International Paypal Mailing Labels Using Java.

See Updates Towards The Bottom For The Latest and this blog post on our new blog:
Printing International Labels In Paypal And Ebay

Using Paypal to print mailing labels is really handy. If you are a seller on Ebay this is especially nice as you can have your international custom labels printed also and pay for the shipping all online.

This is handy, providing that you can get this feature to work.

We have seen that this can be challenging on Internet Explorer or Firefox on both Windows and Ubuntu and both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems.

The international printing of labels relies up on Java being installed, your browser having the Java plugin and everything working properly.

VitalBodies was able to solve the problem for 32-bit (and 64-bit) Ubuntu and found some tips to help Windows users.

VitalBodies found that on Ubuntu that there was a Paypal javascript error that prevents international shipping label printing. Domestic US printing works but not international.

Java needs to be installed. And for us Java was installed. When the PRINT LABELS button in Firefox is pushed nothing would would happen.

And nothing would print.

Digging a bit deeper we went to the ERROR CONSOLE.

In Firefox: Tools > Error Console.

The ERROR CONSOLE says something like this:

     document.BnBLabelApplet.PrintLabel(-1);

on line 93 is not a function.

Thus, no function is called to print, and sure enough, no printing happens.

Using this link to verify the Java installation:
http://www.java.com/en/download/installed.jsp
Shows that Java 6 Update is installed and working.

Additionally, the security certificate for the Java/browser Window that opens “cannot be verified”. If I trust and click OK to allow, a certificate does show up in the WEB START program list. The date is valid and the issuer is Verisign.

In Ubuntu you can access the WEB START program: Applications > Internet > OpenJDK Java 6 Web Start Program.

We were using Firefox 3.0.1 on Ubuntu Hardy Heron, that at the time, was up to date.

The printer itself does work and we could print UPS and USPS domestic US labels from Paypal but not International.

We looked for 3 hours to find a fix or work around but did not find one online, so I am writing this post to help others.
Using the Epiphany web browser I could not print also.

Java from other web sites seemed to be working fine also which made this whole problem even more mysterious.

The link from the print label page to “Download J2SE JRE” on the Paypal International label form, was not linked to the correct page on the Java web site either.

FIXING THE PROBLEM:

VitalBodies ended up having to change from OpenJava (the open source Java) to SUN Java which is proprietary on our 32-bit systems.

For Software Sources, we needed to change to the MAIN Server.

System > Administration > Software Sources.

Then we updated Ubuntu: System > Administration >Update Manager.

That makes sure that Ubuntu has all the most up to date software available for Ubuntu to use.

In Synaptic: System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager.

Search for “Java” and click the “S” to sort what is installed to the top.

We had to “Mark For Removal” Openjdk-jre-6 and uninstall that and what ever else Synaptic recommends to uninstall with that.

Then we had to install Sun Java: Mark For Installation “Sun-java6-jre” and all the packages that the Synaptic suggests to install with that.

Additionally, we had to make sure that all of these we installed:

sun-java6-plugin
sun-java6-bin
sun-java6-jre
rhino
tzdata-java
libaccess-bridge-java

All in all, when Paypal International labels were printing correctly we had a number of Java packages installed. 7 with the Ubuntu icon (including java-common) plus:

sun-java6-plugin
sun-java6-bin
sun-java6-jre
rhino
tzdata-java
libaccess-bridge-java

All this was somewhat grueling to figure out and we hope this post helps others.

We never did get this to work for 64-bit Ubuntu using Firefox.

Why?

Sun-java6-plugin was not offered by Synaptic. With no plugin for the browser we could not get Sun Java to work in the browser.

UPDATES: Nov 24 2010

In Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat you need to add the “Ubuntu Partners” repository for Ubuntu to see the Sun Java files like sun-java6-jre.

System > Administration > Update Manager > Settings > Other Software > Add:

deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu maverick partner

Click Add Source.  Ubuntu will need to rebuild the sources and download some files. May require a reboot.
Now you can add the files as mentioned in the article.
Be aware that if you have your preferences within you Ebay account set to “print within Ebay” that uses an embedded PDF rather than just Java.
Printing and PDF embedded into a web page with Firefox is not covered in this article. You might have to add the Adobe Reader plugin to make that work.
However, if your preferences within you Ebay account NOT set to “print within Ebay” your labels will print within Paypal using Java.
In Ubuntu 9.10 Sun-java6-plugin is available!

Test Your Installation of Java: http://www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.xml

Resources:

In your browser check for messages in the Error Console for clues.

In your browser check Tools > Add Ons > Plugins to see if the Java Plugin is installed.

Open this page to test to see if Java is both installed and working and what version:

http://www.java.com/en/download/installed.jsp

Ubuntu Java: https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/programming/C/java.html

In Ubuntu you can access the WEB START program:

Applications > Internet > OpenJDK Java 6 Web Start Program and see if the certificate is the problem.