USB printer quit working

My USB printer quit working in the middle of a printout.
http://localhost:631 shows:
"Unable to open USB device "usb://HP/DeskJet%20960C": No such device"
Device URI: usb://HP/DeskJet%20960C

dmesg shows:
printer.c: usblp0: error -84 reading printer status <---(lots of these)
printer.c: usblp0: error -84 reading printer status
hub.c: new USB device 00:08.0-2, assigned address 5
printer.c: usblp1: USB Bidirectional printer dev 5 if 0 alt 0 proto 2 vid 0x03F0
pid 0x3104
printer.c: usblp0: removed

kernel is 2.4.22-10mdk

It's done this before... lots of good prints, then it quits in the middle. plugging/unplugging doesn't help, rebooting fixes it. The problem doesn't occur when using the parallel port instead of USB, but I'd rather use the USB port because printouts are faster.

Any ideas how to recover from this condition, or fix it so it doesn't happen?

TIA,
- TSloth

i'm not sure of the command, but i think if you issue the command that rescans usb ports you might be able to fix the problem without rebooting.

I've googled trying to find a command to scan for usb devices, but haven't found one. Can someone tell me what it is?

Other ideas for keeping the USB printer working are also welcome.

Thanks,
- TSloth

try

/etc/init.d/hotplug restart

Thank you, BrianNJ. From the information you gave me I found "man hotplug", /etc/hotplug, and /sbin/hotplug. I will try them next time things freeze.

If anyone has suggestions for *avoiding* the freezes, please let me know.

Thanks again,
- TSloth