Installed CUPS on Slackware 9 not too long ago where
it was working perfectling with Cups-o-matic for printing
directly from Linux and also through Samba from a Win2K
client.

Today tried to print from Win2K, nothing happened so quickly
set debug2 in cupsd.conf and got:

Service must be printable!

Changed smb.conf to add 'printable = yes' to what already
existed:

printing = cups
printcap name = cups

Tried again and now I get:
Printer not connected; will retry in 30 seconds

Why is this happening? Anyone know?

TIA

Your problem sounds like the cupsd daemon may not be running. Usually "/etc/rc.d/rc.cups start".

Have you checked to see if you can still print from the Linux box recently?

Did the Linux box queue the job or was it stuck at the Win box? On your last attempt, the message would indicate it is stuck at the Win box.

With Win2K there could also be security issues, but if Samba is set to "share" level rather then "user" then it shouldn't be an issue. Except write permission to queue the file in the spool directory.

If you have file/printer sharing enabled in Win2K then there could be master browser issues. You could try shutting down both boxes and then starting the Linux box first, followed by the Win box. Samba has settings that can be increased to raise the level when a master browser is challenged.

Perhaps some of the above will help identify your problem area. I haven't used Samba for quite awhile, so I am not that familar with any of the new options or problems. But I used to run a Win2K box that used Samba share level OK for files and printing.

Your first instinct was apparently right. When I to print
directly from Linux I get a line in error_log:

perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
Printer not connected; will retry in 30 seconds

This entry repeats every 30 seconds until I cancel the
print job.

I don't understand, because the hardware connections
have been checked and are solid. lpstat -a (-t -r -s)
all work and say everything is OK. Yes, CUPS is running.


I am baffled now!

You might want to review the cups log files in /var/log/cups. (Edit: That may be the error_log you mentioned.) You can also see if cups will print a test page correctly. Uninstall the printer in cups and then reinstall perhaps.

Here's an oddity;

If enter 'kill _HUP PID' using the cupsd PID cupsd is restarted
and all initialization files reread. Among other entries, in the
error_log, there are some 'LoadDevice' lines which look like:

D [29/Apr/2003:23:13:42 -0500] LoadDevices: Added device "usb:/dev/usb/lp14"...
D [29/Apr/2003:23:13:42 -0500] LoadDevices: Added device "usb:/dev/usb/lp15"...
D [29/Apr/2003:23:13:42 -0500] LoadDevices: Added device "http"...
D [29/Apr/2003:23:13:42 -0500] LoadDevices: Added device "scsi"...
D [29/Apr/2003:23:13:42 -0500] LoadDevices: Added device "serial:/dev/ttyS0?baud=115200"...
D [29/Apr/2003:23:13:42 -0500] LoadDevices: Added device "serial:/dev/ttyS1?baud=115200"...

A previous log file obtained when things were working
properly look like this:

D [20/Apr/2003:00:00:00 -0500] LoadDevices: Added device "usb:/dev/usb/lp14"...
D [20/Apr/2003:00:00:00 -0500] LoadDevices: Added device "usb:/dev/usb/lp15"...
D [20/Apr/2003:00:00:00 -0500] LoadDevices: Added device "http"...
D [20/Apr/2003:00:00:00 -0500] LoadDevices: Added device "scsi"...
D [20/Apr/2003:00:00:00 -0500] LoadDevices: Added device "canon:/dev/lp0"...
D [20/Apr/2003:00:00:00 -0500] LoadDevices: Added device "epson:/dev/lp0"...
D [20/Apr/2003:00:00:00 -0500] LoadDevices: Added device "parallel:/dev/lp0"...
D [20/Apr/2003:00:00:00 -0500] LoadDevices: Added device "serial:/dev/ttyS0?baud=115200"...
D [20/Apr/2003:00:00:00 -0500] LoadDevices: Added device "serial:/dev/ttyS1?baud=115200"...

As you can see, there are a few devices missing and I
don't know why. I did recompile my kernel a few days
ago, but I didn't change anything related to printing.

Any suggestions?

If you still have the prior kernel you boot that and see if the devices change. If it was a default kernel, that can be reloaded from the CD. If you were running the default kernel before then the printer port was a module. I think the module was parport or lp. You could use lsmod and see if the module is loaded.

Thought you might recognize something right off the bat!

Actually, I had parallel-port support checked in my
make menuconfig; I just didn't have "PC-style hardware"
checked. Guess I did change something.

That made the difference.

Printing from Linux directly works fine and much to my
amazement, printing from the Win2K machine through
Samba also works.