printer suddenly disappeared

[Rick Stevens]

On Thu, 2007-05-31 at 01:32 -0400, Buz Davis wrote:
> I have a locally connected (dev/lp0) samsung laser printer that I have
> been using for a couple of years now.  Suddenly this evening I am unable
> to print to it from my Linux box (Red Hat 9).
> 
> on attempting to print the file 'pthis' I get errors:
> 
> lpr pthis
> lpr error - no default destination available
> lpr -P printer pthis
> lpr error - unable to print file:  server-error-service-unavailable
> 
> If I go into Gnome/system tools/print manager I get "No printers found.
> Run the printer configuration tool ?".  On clicking OK and giving the 
> root password the printer configuration appears, and it correctly lists 
> the printer and notes that it is the default.  But it gives the 
> "service-unavailable" message when I attempt to print a test page.
> 
> I have tried disconnecting the printer cable and letting Kudzu remove 
> the configuration, then connecting it and rebooting, and Kudzu finds and 
> configures it (so it says).  Then on entering the Gnome configuration 
> tool I find that the data are still there. (I even tried deleting them 
> and recreating).  None of this has helped.
> 
> Any ideas would be appreciated.

First thing is to make sure your printer daemon is running.  Depending
on your loyalties, this could be lpd or cupsd.

First, make sure the daemon is running.  Try "lpc status" and verify
that you see lines like "daemon present" for each printer you have
configured.  If you don't, well, now you must figure out why the daemons
aren't running.

It could be that somehow the daemons aren't set to start at boot.  In
that case, you should try either "service lpd start" or "service cups
start", depending on which service you use.  Then try the "lpc status"
again.

If they appeared to start but aren't running now, you have more
investigating to do.  Start with the log files.  First check the output
of the "dmesg" command for anything suspect, then look
at /var/log/messages and any other files in the /var/log directory that
are related to the printing system (with CUPS, there's a "/var/log/cups"
directory with stuff in it).

We also have to ask...why are you still running RH9?  It's over four
years old now, it's got major security issues, it's an ancient 2.2
kernel, its memory management is atrocious, it's not supported anymore
by anyone, etc., etc.  You really should make the leap to something
modern: RHEL, Fedora or CentOS (even SuSE, Ubuntu, Debian or some other
derivative).

> 
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- Rick Stevens, Principal Engineer             rstevens at internap.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
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-  Time: Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once.  -
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