Whenever I try to print something with my printer (Epson Stylus C86), or in fact try to access it in any way (escputil, for example), my kernel says:

[kernel] drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: on fire

I am running 2.6.13.4, and I have USB printer support compiled in. I'm running the latest Debian Sid.

The printer used to work before, but it doesn't work now. I tried setting the permissions of /dev/lp0 to 777, but that did not help. 'lsusb' lists the printer. Any ideas appreciated!

LOL!!!

It's a joke, caused by a paper jam or things related like that...

No, I'm pretty sure there isn't a paper jam. I've restarted the printer and opened it up several times, and I don't think the printer is actually the problem, since even the ink-checking doesn't work.

You got the right drivers installed?

I'm not sure what you mean by drivers. Linuxprinting.org lists the printer as being supported by Gimp-Print, and i have the foomatic-db-gimp-print package installed, as suggested. USB printer support is compiled into the kernel, and the PPD exists. What else do I need?

You are using CUPS?

You know the local address http://localhost:631 ?

Maybe some settings are wrong... um... I have no further suggestions.

I've heard of this happening before when a printer's "Pause" button was pressed without the user noticing...

I'm not sure I have a pause button. I have a power button (solid green), an unlit trash button, and a solid red ink button (I am out of C, M, and Y, but I still have Black). This can't be it, since I was able to print in black before it stopped working, and my ink situation is the same. (The printer itself has a feature where it indicates what ink is needed, and Black is fine)...thanks for the tip, though!

mmm, maybe the computer is expecting the colors to be not empty.

In this case, have you tried changing the cartrige? or even telling the application printing that you want to print in black and white?

Yes, i have tried printing in black and white, but now it stalls, no "on fire" error. But checking the ink still fails. Canon charges through the nose for cartridges (I am a student), so I haven't tried that yet. I will, but I have a suspicion it won't help.

I also notice the line "ReadClient: httpGets returned EOF.." in my /var/log/cups/error_log...maybe it has something to do with it? Any help appreciated!

Have you tried LPR? I had many many manymanymany poblems with Mandrake 10.1 and the ML-1450 Samsung printer. If I would print a file with lots of images and so on, the transfer would take forever, and the images would suck.

So I decided to use LPR instead, and type lpr nameofdoc.pdf or lpr nameofdoc.txt ...
It worked better for some reason.

In response to your email:
Do you have a busy light that would go on anywhere? Or does it just discard data?

***
I am a student***
In what ?

***
I also notice the line "ReadClient: httpGets returned EOF.." in my /var/log/cups/error_log...maybe it has something to do with it? Any help appreciated!***

Googling a bit... I found the ghostscript error to be somewhat related.
Do you have ghostscript installed?

I'll try LPR eventually, but I don't think the problem is with the print system, but with the kernel or something in between. again, checking ink (with escputil) fails, no matter if I use LPR or CUPS.

It doesn't discard any data, the job is just stuck as "Processing" (in KDE's printer dialog)...and it never prints.

I'm a student in high school, but this is my last year. I plan to major in Computer Scienece.

Checking things such as ink doesn't require LPR or CUPS, your right... mmm...

However, checking the ink level wouldn't be considered important, and is more of a feature than a requirement... So the printing should be more likely to work than extra features... "working" of course, is a relative term

I find the KDE's printer dialog to be quite buggy, and sometimes freezes... Seeing from the output, you are using the paralel port... I never got anything working fine with paralel port :P must be something I do wrong...

Computer Science sounds fun

Ok, an update, of sorts. I reinstalled cupsys, and now I can access localhost:631, whereas I could not before. Now, I don't get any on fire errors, but the web control panel allways fails printing a test page with "parallel port busy, retry in 30 secs"...i have a usb printer, but i chose the parallel port (/dev/lp0) since the ub port (/dev/usb/lp0) doesn't exist on my system...the whole /dev/usb directory is missing? maybe that is it?

Ink checking worked before, that is why i thought it was so indicative.

whoops. nvm.