"Unable to open USB device"

Tue Apr 26 14:39:28 PDT 2005

This is a common problem on several forums - with no solution ever being reported. Here's some history:

I've been using cups for a while on Debian Sarge with my Samsung ML-1510 USB printer, and everything seemed to work. Then one day I decided to enable access via Samba. I set up Samba and tried to print a test page from a Windows client. It didn't work, the job just sat in the print queue, blocking it. That's not important. I deleted the job, and decided to live without being able to use the printer via Samba.

But, now, cups doesn't work. I deleted all the jobs, deleted the printer, turned it off, shut down the computer, re-added the printer thru the web interface (the preceding steps in many different sequences); nothing works; when I start the printer from the web interface, it says:

 Printer State: idle, accepting jobs.
Device URI: usb:/dev/usb/lp0

but as soon as I try to print a test page, it says:

 Printer State: stopped, accepting jobs.
"Unable to open USB device "usb:/dev/usb/lp0": No such device"
Device URI: usb:/dev/usb/lp0

Here's the output from lsusb:
# lsusb
Bus 003 Device 004: ID 04e8:3242 Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

and here's my /var/log/cups/error_log after clicking on "Print test page", from the start of the job until it shows "no such device":

 StartJob: argv = "Samsung","29","root","Test Page","1","","/var/spool/cups/d00029-001"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: envp[0]="PATH=/usr/lib/cups/filter:/bin:/usr/bin"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: envp[1]="SOFTWARE=CUPS/1.1"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: envp[2]="USER=root"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: envp[3]="CHARSET=iso-8859-1"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: envp[4]="LANG=en_US"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: envp[5]="TZ=Europe/Zurich"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: envp[6]="PPD=/etc/cups/ppd/Samsung.ppd"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: envp[7]="CUPS_SERVERROOT=/etc/cups"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: envp[8]="RIP_MAX_CACHE=8m"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: envp[9]="TMPDIR=/var/spool/cups/tmp"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: envp[10]="CONTENT_TYPE=application/postscript"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: envp[11]="DEVICE_URI=usb:/dev/usb/lp0"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: envp[12]="PRINTER=Samsung"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: envp[13]="CUPS_DATADIR=/usr/share/cups"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: envp[14]="CUPS_FONTPATH=/usr/share/cups/fonts"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: envp[15]="CUPS_SERVER=localhost"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: envp[16]="IPP_PORT=631"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: statusfds = [ 9 10 ]
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: filterfds[1] = [ 11 -1 ]
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: filter = "/usr/lib/cups/filter/pstops"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: filterfds[0] = [ 12 13 ]
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] start_process("/usr/lib/cups/filter/pstops", 0xbffefe50, 0xbffef1c0, 11, 13, 10)
I [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] Started filter /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstops (PID 1277) for job 29.
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: filter = "/usr/lib/cups/filter/foomatic-rip"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: filterfds[1] = [ 11 14 ]
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] start_process("/usr/lib/cups/filter/foomatic-rip", 0xbffefe50, 0xbffef1c0, 12, 14, 10)
I [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] Started filter /usr/lib/cups/filter/foomatic-rip (PID 1278) for job 29.
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: backend = "/usr/lib/cups/backend/usb"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] StartJob: filterfds[0] = [ -1 12 ]
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] start_process("/usr/lib/cups/backend/usb", 0xbffefe50, 0xbffef1c0, 11, 12, 10)
I [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] Started backend /usr/lib/cups/backend/usb (PID 1279) for job 29.
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] ProcessIPPRequest: 6 status_code=0
E [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] PID 1279 stopped with status 1!
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] Page = 595x842; 0,0 to 595,842
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] slowcollate=0, slowduplex=0, sloworder=0
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] 0 %%BoundingBox: 0 0 612 792
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] 0 %%Pages: 1
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] 0 %%LanguageLevel: 1
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] 0 %%DocumentData: Clean7Bit
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] 0 %%DocumentSuppliedResources: procset testprint/1.1
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] 0 %%DocumentNeededResources: font Helvetica Helvetica-Bold Times-Roman
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] 0 %%Creator: Michael Sweet, Easy Software Products
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] 0 %%CreationDate: May 11, 1999
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] 0 %%Title: Test Page
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] 0 %%EndComments
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] 0 %%BeginProlog
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] 0 %%BeginResource procset testprint 1.1 0
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] 0 %%EndResource
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] 0 %%EndProlog
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] 0 %%Page: 1 1
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] 0 %%Page: 1 1
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] pw = 595.0, pl = 842.0
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] PageLeft = 0.0, PageRight = 595.0
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] PageTop = 842.0, PageBottom = 0.0
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] PageWidth = 595.0, PageLength = 842.0
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] LANGUAGE = (unset),
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] LC_ALL = (unset),
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] LANG = "en_US"
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] are supported and installed on your system.
D [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
E [26/Apr/2005:23:30:31 +0200] [Job 29] Unable to open USB device "usb:/dev/usb/lp0": No such device

Any ideas anyone? I'm beginning to think that the best solution is to run my printer off a Windows box.