[nflug] Printer acting weird - cups problem?

[Daniel V]

There at least two separate issues here.

It would be good to look at the permissions of your CUPS files and be sure that they are correctly set. Did you install CUPS from a tarball? What GNU/Linux distro are you using ?

Are you networking the printer ? Could be a data starvation issue. If networking, connect directly to the printer and see if this resolves the issue.

As a workaround, I recommend booting up to the last stable version of Ubuntu (v8.04.1) or Knoppix v.5.3.1 and try to print from that. If this functions fine, then you might just want to redo your GNU/Linux install.

take care,
Daniel

--- On Sat, 11/8/08, Joe <josephj at main.nc.us> wrote:

> From: Joe <josephj at main.nc.us>
> Subject: Re: [nflug] Printer acting weird - cups problem?
> To: nflug at nflug.org
> Date: Saturday, November 8, 2008, 4:31 PM
> Thanks for the reply.
> The problem is occurring when I print one particular file. 
> It's a
> newsletter I subscribe to.  This issue is 26 pages (3.2MB
> pdf).  The .ps
> file is 196.7MB.  The rest of my normal printing of mostly
> text and web
> page images seems to be fine.
> 
> Subsequently I used acroread to open the pdf and print it
> to file in two
> half's using page ranges.  I was away from my LJ, so I
> put the files on
> a thumb drive and printed them on my ancient desktop  with
> its HP
> Deskjet 895Cse (using gsview in Win 98 - don't ask!!)
> with no problem
> (other than having to wait around 10 min for each part to
> get past its
> ancient cpu).  This just proves that the .ps files
> themselves are OK and
> don't contain anything radically new.
> 
> The error log (below) raises a couple of issues:
> There are a ton of unauthorized printer pause and resume
> messages. 
> What's that about?  I routinely use the hplip toolbox
> (as an end user)
> to fix problems with paper jams, etc. and it seems to work
> nicely.  I
> have an HP 1020 laserjet which has no resume button on it. 
> I used to
> restart it (after paper out) using the toolkit, but I found
> out that all
> I have to do is raise and lower the lid to get it to resume
> perfectly. 
> Do these actions have anything to do with these messages?
> 
> [cups-driverd] Unable to write
> "/var/cache/cups/ppds.dat" - Permission
> denied
> 
> drwxrwxr-x  4 root lp    4096 2008-02-12 17:13 cups (in
> /var/cache)
> -rw------- 1 root lp   458752 2007-10-10 17:37 ppds.dat 
> (in
> /var/cache/cups)
> 
> Should ppds.dat have group rw ?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Joe
> 
> /var/log/cups/error_log (tail):
> 
> E [31/Jul/2008:23:00:41 -0400] Pause-Printer: Unauthorized
> E [31/Jul/2008:23:11:59 -0400] Resume-Printer: Unauthorized
> E [01/Aug/2008:16:04:45 -0400] Pause-Printer: Unauthorized
> E [01/Aug/2008:16:04:48 -0400] Resume-Printer: Unauthorized
> E [01/Aug/2008:16:05:11 -0400] Pause-Printer: Unauthorized
> E [01/Aug/2008:16:05:17 -0400] Resume-Printer: Unauthorized
> E [03/Aug/2008:18:36:36 -0400] Pause-Printer: Unauthorized
> E [03/Aug/2008:18:36:39 -0400] Resume-Printer: Unauthorized
> E [03/Aug/2008:18:38:44 -0400] Pause-Printer: Unauthorized
> E [03/Aug/2008:18:38:46 -0400] Resume-Printer: Unauthorized
> E [03/Aug/2008:18:39:10 -0400] Pause-Printer: Unauthorized
> E [03/Aug/2008:18:39:38 -0400] Resume-Printer: Unauthorized
> E [11/Aug/2008:12:35:59 -0400] Pause-Printer: Unauthorized
> E [11/Aug/2008:12:36:03 -0400] Resume-Printer: Unauthorized
> E [04/Nov/2008:15:52:38 -0500] [cups-driverd] Unable to
> write
> "/var/cache/cups/ppds.dat" - Permission denied
> E [04/Nov/2008:15:53:10 -0500] [cups-driverd] Unable to
> write
> "/var/cache/cups/ppds.dat" - Permission denied
> E [04/Nov/2008:15:53:35 -0500] CUPS-Add-Modify-Printer:
> Unauthorized
> E [04/Nov/2008:15:53:51 -0500] CUPS-Add-Modify-Printer:
> Unauthorized
> E [04/Nov/2008:15:56:45 -0500] Pause-Printer: Unauthorized
> E [04/Nov/2008:15:58:33 -0500] Resume-Printer: Unauthorized
> 
> 
> Darin Perusich wrote:
> > Take a look at the cups logs in /var/log/cups,
> especially error_log, for
> > errors? I'd also take a look at the cups
> configuration, /etc/cups/ and
> > see if the update overwrite the configuration.
> >
> > Joe wrote:
> >   
> >> Hi.  I print almost everything to file and then
> run it through my duplex
> >> printing emulator scripts.  These have worked fine
> forever (almost).
> >>
> >> The script generates two sets of print jobs.  The
> first set prints all
> >> the odd pages of one or more files.  That still 
> works fine.  Then, it
> >> prints the even pages one job at a time. 
> Everything prints using
> >> hplip.  The printer is an HP Laserjet 1020 and it
> has worked fine from
> >> the start.
> >>
> >> What's happening now is that it prints all of
> the odd pages and then it
> >> goes to print the first even pages job seems to
> spool it and then says
> >> it's done, but the printer does nothing and
> the job disappears from the
> >> print queue.
> >>
> >> The only clue I have so far is in dmesg, but I
> don't know what it means:
> >>
> >> [  303.623590] usblp0: removed
> >> [  304.304571] audit(1225833627.960:3): type=1503
> >> operation="inode_permission"
> requested_mask="::rw" denied_mask="::rw"
> >> name="/dev/tty" pid=7764
> profile="/usr/sbin/cupsd"
> namespace="default"
> >> bigbird at sananda:~/pq$   
> >>
> >> Is this some kind of permissions thing?
> >> Any ideas?  I think cups was updated in kubuntu
> hardy recently.
> >>
> >> The only unusual thing I did recently was to
> downgrade my kernel from
> >> ...21 to ...19 when I was trying to get my
> winmodem working again (failed).
> >>
> >> TIA
> >> Joe
...