CUPS printer administration

[MakeMyDay]

This article describes how to get better control of your printer if you are using CUPS printing system in FC3. (CUPS is the default in FC3 I believe, at least I don't remember adding it. )

But first, some background. I was up late last night working and accidentally started a print job. Not wanting to wake the baby, I tried to stop the job by clicking on the print queue icon on the top panel. I finally just pulled the plug on the printer and left it until morning. This morning no amount of power-cycling the printer, power-cycling the JetDirect network server, or rebooting my PC would get the thing printing again. I even used System Settings, Printers to remove and recreate the queue and still no print. I was despirate, so I started reading the documenation :). I tried using the lpc command-line utility but it has limited functionality in the version of CUPS in FC3 for some reason. I finally found what are likely the right commands to get things working again:
/usr/sbin/lpadmin
/usr/bin/enable <printer name>
/usr/bin/disable <printer name>
but before trying these commands I found a web interface for CUPS at
http://localhost:631/admin
Using the web interface in just a few clicks I was able to find my printer, clear out the old jobs and start it up again. Cool.

This is a tool that I want to have available, so I added it to the panel at the top (I use Gnome if not obvious already):
Right-click the panel
Add to Panel
Custom Application Launcher
Name = Printer Admin (or whatever text you choose)
Type = Link
URL = http://localhost:631/admin
Icon = /usr/share/pixmaps/printer.png (or any other you like)
OK
Now I can click on this icon, enter root password, and have full control of the printing system such as:
stopping and starting printers
accepting or rejecting jobs at printers
caneling or holding jobs
redoing past jobs
adding new printers.
etc.

I noticed that the Print Notifier (printer icon that shows up on the top panel near the Up2Date icon when printing) doesn't get updated when removing jobs with the web interface. I guess should either find out why or uninstall it.

[grnchile]

Thanks. That made my day. I had the same issue with not being able to print to a JetDirect-equipped printer after a paper jam that I neglected to clear. There were comments in an old CUPS error log about the printer not responding at around that time, but no indication after that beyond the Print Notifier being stuck on "Sending..."

It amazes me that the enable/disable functionality (which is all I needed to fix this) doesn't appear to be in any of the GUI tools.

I've seen claims that the lpd backend is particularly susceptible to this problem. I've switched to "Networked JetDirect" in the hopes that there will be at least some improvement in the diagnostics (this is a low-end HP networked printer that doesn't, unfortunately, support IPP).

[gregstewart]

I've been battling the CUPS problem since I upgraded my RH9 box to FC3 in December.

The printer is an HP DeskJet 5650 on a JetDirect on my home network. It was working flawlessy with RH9.

I had found the CUPS web admin interface in FC3, and set up a printer class which pointed the default printer I had set up before that. This actually got KMail and KOffice to print to the damned thing, but I prefer using OpenOffice.org.

OOo won't print at all. Neither will Firefox. They won't even see the printer or printer class--they just have "Default" which is not what I configured. I'm not even sure if I got Konqueror to print a page.

I found the suggestion to use ~/.rhopenoffice1.1/spadmin in a different thread, but this wasn't any help for me either.

I've tried editing my documents with OOo, and then just printing them with KOffice, but while KOffice will display some of the special fonts I need, it won't print them--that's really annoying!

One thing I tried was to install LPRng (which wasn't installed at all after the upgrade to FC3) as none of the lpr commands existed any more. I ran into libcom_err.so conflicts with the 'newer' version of krb5 having an 'older' version of libcom_err! (the older versions of LPRng wanted 3, and only 2.1 is installed!). A symlink seems to have fooled LPRng, but now I only get mile-long lpr errors if I use the LPRng system.

Anyway, I haven't gotten the chance to back off the CUPS version--yet--as I spent a nite troubleshooting my cdrecord issues that developed after the move to FC3 (I downgraded cdrecord to the rpm from the RH9 CDs!). Now cdrecord works, but CUPS (and ftp and a bunch of other crap) is still broken.

But, I digress...

Anyone have any other clues about CUPS? FC3 is really disappointing me.

[clue]

@gregstewart

Hi!

I don`t know, if you have already looked into kcontrol-center. There you can add printer under the device-section. Just click "add new printer" and select your model from the driverlist. Then it should work in every application you use (well, at least in kde) including adobe acrobat reader and -of course- open office.

[gregstewart]

Thanks clue!

Actually, I did explore that route before I posted--both in Kontrol Panel and in the web-page CUPS admininstration thing (I do use KDE)

I've really just had an overwhelming lot of problems after moving from RH9 to FC3.

BUT... moving to OpenOffice.org 2.0 Beta fixed the printing problem from OOo. I still can't print from FireFox (1.0.6), nor (get this!) Konqueror! I can't figure out why Konqueror won't print when I can print fine from KMail--that just makes no sense to me.

GhostView won't print either, but if I remember correctly, the last time I tried from xpdf it worked (or maybe I have to the wrong way 'round).

But, I still (unfortunately) have a windows box if I need to print a map from the internet.

[Dave Smith]

I have a similar problem with CUPS that I have beenunable to resolve. Although I have a printer succesfully install all my work is being queued. When I go into CUPS via http://localhost:631/admin it tells me that my printer has ben stopped. Even when I use this to start hte printer nothing happens. Just queued work ...

Any answers?

Thanks

Dave