Java 8 issues printing PS to network printer - printing

Question

Got a weird question for you. Recently upleveled my old project from java 7(jdk1.7.0_10) to java 8(1.8.0.91.x86_64). In java 7 it printed the post script file with no issues and now it is printing the postscript file as plain text instead of converting the file. This is on a redhat linux environment. Simply I am trying to print a string containing a post script file of a file itself.
Here is my original code
DocFlavor flavor = DocFlavor.INPUT_STREAM.POSTSCRIPT;
PrintService pService = PrintServiceLookup.lookupDefaultPrintService();
// In a field environment, send to the printer
if (System.getenv("USER_DEFINED_RELTOP") == null || pfr.exists()) {
if (pService.getName().isEmpty()) {
LOGGER.error("No printer selected");
} else {
LOGGER.info("Printing to " + pService.getName());
DocPrintJob pj = pService.createPrintJob();
try {
InputStream is = new ByteArrayInputStream(data.getBytes("UTF8"));
Doc doc = new SimpleDoc(is, flavor, null);
PrintJobWatcher pjw = new PrintJobWatcher(pj);
pj.print(doc, null);
pjw.waitForDone();
is.close();
} catch (PrintException | IOException e) {
LOGGER.error(e);
} // try block
} // no printer selected
// Otherwise, send to a file
} else {
That worked fine in java 7, I updated it to the oracle spec found here for java 8.
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/javax/print/PrintService.html#createPrintJob--
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/jps/spec/printing.fm6.html
DocFlavor psFlavor = DocFlavor.INPUT_STREAM.POSTSCRIPT;
PrintRequestAttributeSet attrs = new HashPrintRequestAttributeSet();
attrs.add(MediaSizeName.ISO_A4);
PrintService[] pservices = PrintServiceLookup.lookupPrintServices(psFlavor,
attrs);
File pfr = new File(PFR_INDICATOR);
// In a field environment, send to the printer
if (System.getenv("USER_DEFINED_RELTOP") == null || pfr.exists()) {
//Check we have a printer capable of post script
if (pservices.length > 0) {
LOGGER.info("Printing to " + pservices[0].getName());
DocPrintJob pj = pservices[0].createPrintJob();
try {
InputStream fis = new ByteArrayInputStream(data.getBytes("UTF8"));
//byte[] ba =data.getBytes("UTF8");
Doc doc = new SimpleDoc(fis, psFlavor, null);
LOGGER.info("Doc Flavor " + doc.getDocFlavor());
PrintJobWatcher pjw = new PrintJobWatcher(pj);
LOGGER.info("PrintJob Attributes : " + pj.getAttributes());
pj.print(doc, attrs);
pjw.waitForDone();
fis.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
LOGGER.error(e);
NotificationDialog.show(NotificationDialog.NOTICE_TYPE.ERROR, PRINT_ERROR);
} catch (PrintException e) {
LOGGER.error(e);
}
} else { // no printer selected
This gives me an error java.awt.print.PrinterIOException: java.io.IOException: /usr/bin/lpr: where it looks to not find lpr.
If I keep it the way it was originally (not write to file) it prints the postscript as plain text even if adding the check to check if the printer is post script capable. If I use the new way of printing file I get a lpr not found error. If I print the PS document using the command lpr it converts it as expected and prints fine. If I use lpr -l that doesn't format it prints it document as plain text as well.
Any suggestion/help would be great. I am lost on what to do. I really don't want to convert it to an image and print that.

Answer 1

At a guess I'd say that your printer is an HP or at least PCL + PS printer, not a pure PostScript-only printer.
In that case you generally need to prepend the PostScript with a language selection PJL string. If you don't do this then it usually defaults to PCL and if you don't send any PCL commands (which all begin with 0x1B) then everything is treated as plain ASCII text. That would explain why both your application and lpr -l end up writing text, but lpr itself doesn't (presumably it adds the PJL).
You could try prepending the PostScript file with something like:
%-12345X#PJL JOB
#PJL ENTER LANGUAGE=POSTSCRIPT
NB the first byte there, before the % should be a 0x1b ESC character, but I can't readily paste binary....
Try sending the file with lpr -l if that works then you could try your old printing method.