[CentOS] what causes CUPS to dis-enable a printer?

Wed Feb 10 14:15:18 UTC 2010
Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com>

At Tue, 9 Feb 2010 22:37:28 -0600 CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> wrote:

> 
> In our computer lab, there are 6 Centos 5.4 workstations. There is an
> HP printer with jet direct card. It often works.
> 
> But sometimes users come and get me saying the printer is broken, but
> it is actually working fine for *most* of the workstations.
> 
> On the troubled system, I run system-config-printer and I check the
> printer in question (under properties)  and I see the printer has been
> disabled. I mean, the box by the word Enabled is empty.
> 
> After I manually (use lprm) remove the print jobs, and set the printer
> to Enabled, then the print queue will start working again.
> 
> I've checked the files in /var/log/cups and there's nothing evident.
> error_log has nothing.
> 
> We have had the problem during the year (that others have reported in
> this list).  When trying to print some pdf files from Evince, the
> symptom of the problem is that the pdf files don't print. They seem to
> "clog" the printer.  When that happens, I have seen the Enabled box
> come unchecked in the printer configurator.  However, the most recent
> problems are not associated with the use of Evince.

Unless you have a proper print filter for them (on the Linux system!),
PDF files cannot be printed.  

> I would really appreciate some tips about how to bugshoot this problem.
> 
> pj
> 
> ps. The Cups server is running on the system in question, lpq shows
> lots of print jobs waiting.

Wondering if the printer *by itself* can manage handling connections
for a number of workstations and arbitrating jobs.  Maybe you need a
Linux print server to manage the print queue and feed jobs to the
printer one at a time.  It seems like some of the workstations are
getting a refused connection and thinking the printer is 'dead' (and
thus disabling it), when it is merely too busy to respond.  A proper
linux print server would queue up the job and be ready for additional
connections. 

> 
> 

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
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