Cups server version 1.7.5
running on ubuntu 14.04

cupsserver use drivers:
Generic PCL 6/PCL XL Printer - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.10 for bl/wh printing
Generic PCL 6/PCL XL Printer Foomatic/pxlcolor for color printing.

Classes are defined with two printers, one primary printer and one secondary.

Printing comes randomly to each printer, practically there are no default printer.

I see in the printer list that the printers after a print job has the tag 'idle-"waiting for the printer to finnish"'.
The panel on the printer shows 'ready to print'. The tag 'idle-"waiting for the printer to finnish"' stays for hours.

My question is, is it the tag "waiting for the printer to finnish"' that makes the printer-class print randomly to primary or secondary printer?

And if so, how can I get rid of the tag?

By restarting the cups server /etc/init.d/cups retart, the tags disappear.
In the morning before the print jobs start, the tags has disappeared as well without restarting.

Paal Marker

A web search for "cups waiting for the printer to finish" turns up a number of links. Apparently this is not an unusual situation.

Since you are using Ubuntu, you might start with this one: http://askubuntu.com/questions/56298...come-available

As a test, try setting a default printer and seeing whether that affects the problem.

Yes, sometimes it seems that even though the job has been processed, the local machine is not aware that the job is complete. You can examine /etc/cups/printers.conf to get the status. Not sure why it occurs.

FWIW, a recent openSUSE thread on the same topic.

Thanks for answers

I did in advance of making this thread go through all of what I could find on the net concerning the tag 'idle-"waiting for the printer to finnish"'. Most of them were unsolved, and those who had a solution did not match my enviroment. Some suggestions about changing drivers, but I am reluctant to do that, as the generic driver I use prints very well to a range of different models.

The error_log does not make any statements concerning the tag, and the printers.conf does not tell anything.

My key question is if this tag makes the first printer in the class unavailable. If I pause the secondary printer, the primary printer handle the jobs perfect, even with the tag 'idle-"waiting for the printer to finnish"' present.

Or is a random use of defined printers what I have to expect using classes?

CUPS checks for available printers in a given printer class in the order in which they were added, so I wouldn't expect it to be random as such.

I have defined two of the printers on another server and newer cups version. In additional using a different driver

Cups version 2.1.4 on slackware 14,2
driver: HP LaserJet 700 color MFP M775 Postscript

The printermodel is a HP LaserJet 700 color MFP M775

Testpage from the cupsserver: The problem persists. The printer prints, and the tag idle "waiting for printer to finish" stays for hours.

The server and printer are on different subnets, but there are no fw between.

Does this prevent another job being processed though?

It seems so. Printing to class makes jobs go to random of the two printers defined. In practice there is no default printer.

But I do not know the core of CUPS well enough to determine if the tag "waiting printer to finish" redirect the job to next printer in the class. But this is what I suspect.

I think you're correct about that. In any case, I note that this BSD bug report claims to have a patch for CUPS to correct this, but doesn't appear to have been fixed upstream yet.

A similar discussion about the issue here, but Michael Sweet appears to have closed it...
https://github.com/apple/cups/issues/4851

This may only affect particular (LPD, AppSocket) network backends
http://lists.cups.org/pipermail/cups...ly/016837.html
The CUPS maintainer wrote...
Following the discussion there, it seems they're only interested in supporting IPP backend as most modern printers support that protocol now.

Thank you very much for help here, Ferrari.

As I have two servers available here, I will make a test converting from socket to ipp. I will post the result of that in a couple of days.

Great. I'll await your results with interest.

I have changed one of the printers from socket:// to ipp:// and ran a test page from the server.

The tag showing up now has changed from 'Idle-"waiting for the printer to finish"
to Idle - "Waiting for job to complete." And has been there for at last 10 hours now.

So I am back to square one.

Just to make clear, by directing the jobs to the printer it works just fine. It is as members of class the problem occures that there is no default printer.

Yes, one would hope that the printer status is cleaned up properly after the successful completion of the job.

Right, so I guess a bug report is in order then.

Something that might be worth trying for a problematic IPP communication...

The following IPP options appended at the end of your defined URI may be helpful here
For example, using both options together...
Reference:
https://www.cups.org/doc/network.html#IPP

Thank you very much for your efforts here Ferrari.

Have tested the conf:
ipp://host/queue?waitjob=false&waitprinter=false

It still stays a tag, and now Idle - "Connected to printer." But if this tag will move jobs from default printer in a class is yet to see.

I will have to configure a test enviroment to make sure of that. Will do that tomorrow(If I reach) and post the result.