[gentoo-user] Please help me get my printer working again.

[gentoo-user] Please help me get my printer working again.

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Gentoo.

My printer used to work.  According to CUPS, its last succesful print
was in February.  (Incidentally, I used to have an up-to-date system, but
that went when I screwed it up after Gentoo made Gnome-3 stable and I
tried to switch out of Gnome.  My last emerge --sync was around the same
time.)

When I tried to print a *.pdf from evince, I got an error message saying
/path/to/foomatic-rip didn't exist.  (Sorry, I can't reproduce the exact
error message any more).  It would seem there has been a change from
foomatic filters to cups-filters (which I have installed) at some stage.

But I don't recall this change, and I can't find any docs about how to
configure printing to use cups-filters.  When I go through the "Modify
printer" sequence in http://localhost:631, and try to change the filter,
I just get presented with a long list of foomatic filters.

I've been at this stage for some while now, dreading the impending hours
and hours of web searching.  Any tips people can give me to cut this
miserable process short will be most warmly received.

By the way, what has happened to the helpful documentation which used to
be at http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en?  Most of it seems to have
disappeared.  There used to be a helpful doc on setting up a printer,
but that has gone.  (I'm lucky enough to be able to read the German
translations, which (largely, at least) still exist, but they're
somewhat out of date).

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] Please help me get my printer working again.

[Dale]

Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> Hi, Gentoo.
>
> My printer used to work.  According to CUPS, its last succesful print
> was in February.  (Incidentally, I used to have an up-to-date system, but
> that went when I screwed it up after Gentoo made Gnome-3 stable and I
> tried to switch out of Gnome.  My last emerge --sync was around the same
> time.)
>
> When I tried to print a *.pdf from evince, I got an error message saying
> /path/to/foomatic-rip didn't exist.  (Sorry, I can't reproduce the exact
> error message any more).  It would seem there has been a change from
> foomatic filters to cups-filters (which I have installed) at some stage.
>
> But I don't recall this change, and I can't find any docs about how to
> configure printing to use cups-filters.  When I go through the "Modify
> printer" sequence in http://localhost:631, and try to change the filter,
> I just get presented with a long list of foomatic filters.
>
> I've been at this stage for some while now, dreading the impending hours
> and hours of web searching.  Any tips people can give me to cut this
> miserable process short will be most warmly received.
>
> By the way, what has happened to the helpful documentation which used to
> be at http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en?  Most of it seems to have
> disappeared.  There used to be a helpful doc on setting up a printer,
> but that has gone.  (I'm lucky enough to be able to read the German
> translations, which (largely, at least) still exist, but they're
> somewhat out of date).
>

When I run into this issue, I delete the printer and add it back.  For
some reason, that has always fixed my issues. It seems that when CUPS
gets upgraded, it needs the printers reconfigured from scratch. 

Hope that helps.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!

Re: [gentoo-user] Please help me get my printer working again.

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Dale.

On Sun, Jun 01, 2014 at 09:57:23AM -0500, Dale wrote:
> Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> > Hi, Gentoo.

> > My printer used to work.  According to CUPS, its last succesful print
> > was in February.  (Incidentally, I used to have an up-to-date system, but
> > that went when I screwed it up after Gentoo made Gnome-3 stable and I
> > tried to switch out of Gnome.  My last emerge --sync was around the same
> > time.)

> > When I tried to print a *.pdf from evince, I got an error message saying
> > /path/to/foomatic-rip didn't exist.  (Sorry, I can't reproduce the exact
> > error message any more).  It would seem there has been a change from
> > foomatic filters to cups-filters (which I have installed) at some stage.

> > But I don't recall this change, and I can't find any docs about how to
> > configure printing to use cups-filters.  When I go through the "Modify
> > printer" sequence in http://localhost:631, and try to change the filter,
> > I just get presented with a long list of foomatic filters.

> > I've been at this stage for some while now, dreading the impending hours
> > and hours of web searching.  Any tips people can give me to cut this
> > miserable process short will be most warmly received.

> > By the way, what has happened to the helpful documentation which used to
> > be at http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en?  Most of it seems to have
> > disappeared.  There used to be a helpful doc on setting up a printer,
> > but that has gone.  (I'm lucky enough to be able to read the German
> > translations, which (largely, at least) still exist, but they're
> > somewhat out of date).


> When I run into this issue, I delete the printer and add it back.  For
> some reason, that has always fixed my issues. It seems that when CUPS
> gets upgraded, it needs the printers reconfigured from scratch. 

> Hope that helps.

Well it did, and it didn't.  I deleted then added the printer as you
suggested.  Nothing.  But somehow, that brought me to consider the error
message I reported above.  So I emerged foomatic-filters (which, somehow,
I'd removed in February), and now printing works, at least for files.pdf.

So, thanks for the email, it brought me back to sanity.

> Dale

> :-)  :-) 

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

[gentoo-user] Re: Please help me get my printer working again.

[James]

Alan Mackenzie <acm <at> muc.de> writes:



> So, thanks for the email, it brought me back to sanity.


A few things to remember. Always check that cupsd is running.
(# rc-status). You may need to stop and start the cupsd.

Go to the /etc/cups dir and make a second copy of the *.conf files
and any others that you use. I give mine a .date <actual date>
string, so as to make recovery trivial in the future. Also it's
easy to 'scp' those files around to machines if/when necessary.
The cups gui interface just modifies those files.

Last, become familar with http://localhost:631/
 to use the everychanging cups interface to manage your 
networked and printing resources.

If you have HP printers, install this:  net-print/hplip

One last nuance with cups. Sometimes cupsd is running but the cups
software has stop printing. Go to the admin section of cups
(http://localhost:631/) and just start the printer again; it's
a bug_anomoly I have seen too many times.

Really, it's not that difficult with these tidbits to manage and recover
functional printing.  Using dbus as a flag setting never hurts either
and check your cups flag settings. Use the ethernet port in lieu
of the usb port, imho, if you have both on any given printer......


hth,
James

Re: [gentoo-user] Please help me get my printer working again.

[Dale]

Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> So, thanks for the email, it brought me back to sanity. 

I wish a email could work like that on a lot of people, including me
some days.  ;-) 

Glad you got it working.  James has some good advice on hplip too.  I
use it to set up my printer.  It works a lot better. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!