linux printer issue

Slackyman · 05-07-2012, 01:04 PM

Something went wrong during packets transmission or on the other side of the communication since I'm almost sure that all was done good and that the Linux printer system (CUPS) is doing well its job.
Maybe the printer cannot accept the job but cannot communicate to the Linux printer system or vice versa.
Is there any kind of firewall?

sam845 · 05-09-2012, 08:22 AM

yes there is a firewall, and more than one actually, but I have been told it is set to allow all on my lan, which is where my printer is.
Could I use a tool such as nc to see what's wrong ? If so, could you guide me through it? I've never used it before.

sam845 · 05-09-2012, 08:43 AM

Actually I tried tcpdump and what I find out is that my computer seems to sends the following sentence to the printer, instead of the file content:
**** Unable to open the initial device, quitting.
Does that help to figure out what's wrong ?

Slackyman · 05-09-2012, 08:56 AM

Try installing the printer as a "Generic PCL5 printer" and print again.

sam845 · 05-09-2012, 09:32 AM

err... How exactly can I do that ?
Am I supposed to change the driver and choose: "Generic PCL 5 Printer - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.8-pre1" ?

Slackyman · 05-09-2012, 09:44 AM

Try that, yes.

sam845 · 05-09-2012, 09:50 AM

Well I did and it doesn't work either. It still produces no error, goes to the print queue and then gets out of it as though it was printed, but the printer still doesn't print anything. This time, tcpdump doesn't produce any understandable ascii message. If that helps, the tcp flow is as follow: syn, syn-ack, ack + psh-ack, ack + psh-ack, ack + ack + ack + psh-ack, ack + ack + ack (tcp window update), psh-ack, ack + fin-ack, ack+fin-ack, ack.

Slackyman · 05-09-2012, 10:32 AM

Modify your /etc/cups/printers.conf for the printer as follow:

Code:

<Printer Generic-PCL-5e>
AuthInfoRequired username,password
Info Generic
Location
MakeModel Generic PCL 5e Printer - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.6
DeviceURI lpr://XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX 
State Idle
StateTime 1336576980
Type 4116
Filter application/vnd.cups-raw 0 -
Filter application/vnd.cups-raster 100 rastertogutenprint.5.2
Accepting Yes
Shared No
JobSheets none none
QuotaPeriod 0
PageLimit 0
KLimit 0
OpPolicy default
ErrorPolicy stop-printer
</Printer>

Where XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX is the IP address of the printer.

sam845 · 05-09-2012, 11:21 AM

okay I did, it's still exactly the same. The queue is emptied, but nothing is printed.
edit: oh and by the way this configuration file said that I should not modify it if cupsd was running, so I tried to kill it, but it spawned right back, so I did the modifications with cupsd running.

Slackyman · 05-09-2012, 12:45 PM

To spot cupsd you have to invocate the script and tell it to stop.
In slackware you can stop cupsd with

Code:

/etc/rc.d/rc.cups stop

and start it with:

Code:

/etc/rc.d/rc.cups start

sam845 · 05-10-2012, 02:50 AM

There is no /etc/rc.d directory in my 12.04 ubuntu, nor any rc.cups file in the /etc/ folder, or any of its sub folder.
In any case, I rebooted the computer, which would restart that daemon, and the printer still doesn't print anything, so the modification we made in the /etc/cups/printers.conf file didn't solve the problem.

Slackyman · 05-10-2012, 05:27 AM

In Ubuntu you have to:

Code:

sudo service cupsd restart

.

sam845 · 05-10-2012, 06:09 AM

cupsd: unrecognized service
but as I said, I did restart the service by restarting the whole computer, so even that wouldn't solve the problem.

Slackyman · 05-10-2012, 06:31 AM

Sincerly I cannot guess what's going wrong so I hope someone can continue where we left.
Sorry.

sam845 · 05-10-2012, 07:14 AM

It's okay, I can't guess either. Thanks a lot for your help so far.