Bizarre CUPS printing behavior.

[akonstam at trinity.edu]

I am having a problem so bizarre that in my mind that I don't where to
search for the answer. Maybe someone has an idea.

As of last night I had a cups print server that could print to all of
our printers and also support printing to the printers from a print
client.

All of the printers were configured through the web interface. Late
this morning  I looked at the list of printers using the cups web
interface and found the following:
1. All the printer displays said configuration of the printer should
be done with system-config-printer.
2. The configuration had been changed on the server so that all of the
drivers to these HP printers had been changed to Raw Driver. For the Postscript
printers postscript files could be printed but text not. Yesterday
text, postscript and pdf files could be printed. 
3. For each printer displayed on the server the description field had
been erased and replaced with the statement that that the entry was
configured by redhat-config-printer.
4. No browsing is occurring nor can the client print. If you try you
get an error : lpr: error - unable to print file:
server-error-service-unavailable
Which makes sense since there are no printers appearing in the CUPS
web interface for the client.

The server is FC3 and the client is FC4. I am beginning to believe in
computer ghosts. I have working with computers for nearly 50 years and
have never been more frustrated.

Ideas anyone?
-- 

=======================================================================
I do not seek the ignorant; the ignorant seek me -- I will instruct them.
I ask nothing but sincerity.  If they come out of habit, they become tiresome.
		-- I Ching
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Aaron Konstam
Computer Science
Trinity University
telephone: (210)-999-7484