client-error-not-possible

[Michael Sweet]

Anonymous wrote:
>> I think it's about time to kill this thing and reinstall LPRng. At
> 
> least, that worked. LPRng is EASY software, CUPS is a pain in the
> backside.
> 
> Yup, I've started getting that message, after having CUPS working
> fine for some time and no change in configuration. It's not only a
> terrible job of error message writing, but something that the CUPS
> crew has avoided bothering to post anything anywhere I can find it on
> what actually occassions it, let alone how to fix it when it shows
> up. They should be reading these forums, and attending to stuff like
> this.
> 
> I've been using Linux as my primary OS for 12 years, and there is yet
> to be a fully-dependable printing system for it. You'd think someone
> would bother to get it right.

Unless you are using CUPS built from source, with all remnants of
the Linux distros version of CUPS removed, then you probably need
to talk to your Linux vendor - none of them ship a standard CUPS
distribution, and most of them do things to CUPS and the CUPS
configuration files that cause things to break.

Also, even though people are complaining about error messages, we
only have a single STR on the subject!  Complaining here or on some
other CUPS forum won't get things fixed, only submitting a bug report
will.

FWIW, CUPS 1.2 will add localized error messages in addition to the
standard IPP error strings so that you'll have a better idea of what
is going wrong.

As the original post and all other messages that reference the
client-error-not-possible error are lacking in important information
(such as the CUPS configuration, what command(s) were run to produce
the error, etc.) I'm afraid there isn't much we can do to help you.

Possible causes of client-error-not-possible:

     1. Trying to add a class with the same name as a printer.
     2. Trying to add a printer with the same name as a class.
     3. Trying to add a printer using a file: device without
        setting "FileDevice" to "yes" in cupsd.conf.
     4. Trying to add a printer using an unknown device URI or
        scheme.
     5. Trying to cancel a job that does not exist.
     6. Trying to print a file when there are too many jobs in
        the system.
     7. Trying to print a file when you have exceeded your quota
        settings.
     8. Trying to move a job that has already printed.
     9. Trying to release a job that is not held.
     10. Trying to restart a job that is not completed.
     11. Trying to change job options for a job that is completed.
     12. Trying to print a directory.

All of these except #12, which happens on the client side in
cupsPrintFiles(), will log a human-readable error in the
/var/log/cups/error_log file.

Given that the original poster is using an ancient version of
CUPS, my money is on #6, since old versions of CUPS would not
automatically flush the job history in some cases.  Doing:

     rm -f /var/spool/cups/c*
     killall -HUP cupsd

should restore printing if that is the case.

-- 
______________________________________________________________________
Michael Sweet, Easy Software Products           mike at easysw dot com
Internet Printing and Document Software          http://www.easysw.com