[K12OSN] CUPS stopping after printing one job

[Terrell Prude' Jr.]

Terrell Prude' Jr. wrote:
> Ronnie Miller wrote:
>> I'm having an issue with cups printing in my k12ltsp labs. Both are
>> running Centos 5 with all updates applied. My problem is that when a 
>> class
>> is printing to the lab printer, the first job or two prints and the rest
>> never get printed. It's as if the print service hangs up on the 
>> second or
>> third job.
>>
>> Usually, I have to clear previous jobs using http://localhost:631 and 
>> the
>> CUPS admin screens to get the printer working for them to print in the
>> first place. Both are set up as IP printers. Is there something 
>> simple I'm
>> missing?
>>
>> Any help is always appreciated.
>>   
>
> My Dad ran into a similar issue just today.  Here's how I fixed it for 
> him.
>
> I did an "lpq -P MyCaseSensitivePrinterName" at a terminal window.  I 
> saw a bunch of jobs, preceded by this message:
>
>   printer is not ready
>
>
> If you see that, then take a look at the /etc/cups/printers.conf and 
> look for the following:
>
>
>    State Stopped
>    StateMessage /usr/lib/cups/backend/lpd failed
>
>
> What you do to fix this is as follows.
>
> Edit /etc/cups/printers.conf, delete both of those lines, and replace 
> them with this:
>
>    State idle
>
> and restart the CUPS daemon (as root) with "/sbin/service cups 
> restart".  That ought to get your jobs printing again.
>
> But this could happen again and again, you say!  Will I have to do 
> this every time??  The answer is no, you won't.  What's happening here 
> is that, for whatever reason, CUPS is timing out in talking to the 
> printer and thus administratively downs the printer.  What it *should* 
> do, ideally, is simply try again (maybe the printer cable got kicked, 
> or it was powered off, or whatever).  And we can, indeed, make that 
> happen!
>
> Again, in /etc/cups/printers.conf, replace the following line
>
>    ErrorPolicy stop-printer
>
> with this
>
>    ErrorPolicy retry-job
>
> and things should be just peachy from here out.  Remember to restart 
> the CUPS daemon after this change as well so that it takes effect.
>
> --TP

Slight edit:  The line should be "State Idle" instead of "State idle" 
above.  This may indeed be case sensitive.  Hey, I'm a little tired.  :-)

--TP