USB printer stopped being recognised

driptray · 03-01-2006, 07:03 AM

I have a new Epson Stylus C87 USB printer. I'm running CUPS in Kubuntu Breezy.

I installed the printer using the Add Printer wizard in KDE. I used the Gutenprint v5.0.0.-rc2 driver for the Epson Stylus C88. It worked. I was happy.

But ever since that first happy day it hasn't worked. CUPS is running. The driver is installed. When I plug in the printer, dmesg indicates that my PC sees it:

Code:

[ 1611.717637] usb 2-1: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 3
[ 1611.773160] drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: USB Bidirectional printer dev 3 if 0 alt 0 proto 2 vid 0x04B8 pid 0x0005

But my jobs never print. They show up as "Queued" in KJobViewer. The printer shows as "stopped" in the KDE Control Panel.

When I try and print a test page from the KDE Control Panel, /var/log/cups/error_log shows:

Code:

Unable to open USB device "usb://EPSON/Stylus%20C87": No such device

I've tried removing the printer, and re-adding it, but I always get the same result.

What's gone wrong? Why did it work for a single day and then never again?

maroonbaboon · 03-03-2006, 12:59 AM

You can check if the printer is still recognised by the usb system with the usbview app.

You should check the usblp driver is loaded. If compiled as a module it will be in the output of the 'lsmod' command.

Pretty obviously the printer has to show up as waiting for jobs rather than stopped in the KDE printer control panel.

All above OK and still no output? Pretty strange. Try a different USB port? Check the cable connections?

driptray · 03-03-2006, 05:36 AM

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm also in Sydney btw.

Anyway, usbview tells me that the printer is indeed seen by the computer. The relevant part of its output is:

Code:

USB Printer
Manufacturer: EPSON
Serial Number: L42030601091024370
Speed: 12Mb/s (full)
USB Version:  1.10
Device Class: 00(>ifc )
Device Subclass: 00
Device Protocol: 00
Maximum Default Endpoint Size: 8
Number of Configurations: 1
Vendor Id: 04b8
Product Id: 0005
Revision Number:  1.00

Config Number: 1
	Number of Interfaces: 1
	Attributes: c0
	MaxPower Needed:   2mA

	Interface Number: 0
		Name: usblp
		Alternate Number: 0
		Class: 07(print) 
		Sub Class: 1
		Protocol: 2
		Number of Endpoints: 2

			Endpoint Address: 01
			Direction: out
			Attribute: 2
			Type: Bulk
			Max Packet Size: 64
			Interval: 0ms

			Endpoint Address: 82
			Direction: in
			Attribute: 2
			Type: Bulk
			Max Packet Size: 64
			Interval: 0ms

Then I try:

Code:

lsmod|grep usblp
usblp                  13568  0

So I guess there's no problem there.

The printer does show up as waiting for jobs, ("idle, accepting jobs" is the phrase from memory), but about 20 seconds after I send it a job it switches to "stopped". Restarting it doesn't work - after another 20 seconds it switches to "stopped" again.

And every time I send it a job, /var/log/cups/error_log shows:

Code:

Unable to open USB device "usb://EPSON/Stylus%20C87": No such device

I've tried a couple of different USB ports. I haven't tried a different cable, but it's a bit hard to believe that the new cable that worked only a few days ago would suddenly break, especially as usbview is telling me that the computer and printer are communicating along that cable just fine.

My limited diagnostic skills tell me that the USB connection between computer and printer is fine, but that CUPS might not be communicating with the printer. Is that a reasonable deduction? What could I change in my CUPS configuration that might help?

maroonbaboon · 03-03-2006, 07:16 AM

Hi again - yes, looks pretty mysterious. Is the printer still showing up in usbview after being stopped in the print manager?

You can turn the CUPS debug info way up. In KDE Control Center -> Peripherals -> Printers there is a menu item Print Server -> Configure Server which lets you set the debug level. Might show the failure point a bit better.

Is there plenty of ink? I seem to recall a couple of ink-jets I've used (HP I think) just cut off communication when the ink was low.

driptray · 04-21-2006, 07:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maroonbaboon

Hi again - yes, looks pretty mysterious. Is the printer still showing up in usbview after being stopped in the print manager?

Yes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by maroonbaboon

You can turn the CUPS debug info way up. In KDE Control Center -> Peripherals -> Printers there is a menu item Print Server -> Configure Server which lets you set the debug level. Might show the failure point a bit better.

Nope, no extra useful information.

Quote:

Originally Posted by maroonbaboon

Is there plenty of ink?

Yes, there is plenty of ink, and the printer works fine in Windows.

I'm lost. I researched my printer purchase on linuxprinting.org, bought one of their "recommended" printers, and the damn thing doesn't work.

maroonbaboon · 04-22-2006, 09:13 AM

Sorry to hear you haven't solved the problem yet. I don't understand the internals of CUPS well enough to know where to look.

One other suggestion: there is a possible conflict between cupsd and rpc.statd daemons for port 631. This bit me recently, preventing the cups server even starting. It is not 100% reproducible and I'm not sure if it can produce the symptoms you report.

Run 'lsof | grep IP | grep ipp' (or try '631' instead of 'ipp') to see what else is using the port.

Other than that I can only suggest using apt-get to remove and reinstall the cupsys package and its dependencies, just in case something got corrupted.