Windows clients of CUPS - newbie question

[John A. Murdie]

> >
> > Not a known problem, but if "http://printserver:631" is the only
> > thing in the URI for the printer, then you need to fix that - it
> > should look like "http://printserver:631/printers/foo".
> >
> > --
> > ______________________________________________________________________
> > Michael Sweet, Easy Software Products           mike at easysw dot com
> > Internet Printing and Document Software          http://www.easysw.com
>
> Sorry - my fault; that's the form it did take. I mailed from my usual Linux o/s, having rebooted from Windows. I'll look further at this problem.
>
> John A. Murdie

Curiouser and curiouser. As I've said, CUPS (1.2.3, will update to 1.2.4 soon) printing works fine from our Windows XP desktops addressing http//printserver:631/printers/foo, but the Windows XP queue listing window still shows "foo on http://printserver:631 Failed to open, retyring". (Ok, I'd misremembered the exact form of that error message.)

To reproduce this problem (I'll open an STR with this if you think it might be a CUPS bug rather than a misconfiguration at my end):

On Windows XP, Start -> Settings -> Printers and Faxes -> Shift right-click, Run as Administrator, Add Printer (so you can choose Internet printer, which is greyed out for ordinary users) -> Mext -> Network Printer -> Next -> printer on the Internet, http://printserver:631/printers/foo -> Next -> HP LaserJet 8150 (PS) -> OK -> Default = No -> Next -> Finish. (The drivers are already present on this Windows XP desktop system.) Then double-click 'Foo on http://printserver:631' to make it show the print queue list box - which shows no error message - and the printer icon has 'Ready' next to it. Then right-click 'Foo on http://printserver:631' -> Properties -> to get the tabbed configuration dialogue box (General) and click 'Print Test Page' (click 'Ok' to the 'Did it print?' dialogue box that appears). The error message "foo on http://printserver:631 Failed to open, retyring" now appears at the top of the queue listing box. The Windows test page appears on the printer.

I've tried looking under the 'Ports' tab of the configuration window (which shows Port "http://printserver:631/printers/foo", Description "Internet port", Printer = "foo", which is highlighted, and pressing "Configure port" - it has "Automatically use the Windows logon name and password" checked (which is ok, since the IP address of the Windows XP desktop is permitted access to the CUPS server and the logon name is the same on both systems - hence why the print attempts work). The other options here are "Use anonymous account" (which I've not tried) and "Use the specified user account" (which I've tried with my own name and password - which also works).

Nevertheless, although I can print documents I can't obtain a queue listing on Windows. Oddly, if I 'tail -f access_log' on the print server and choose 'Printer' -> 'Pause printing' from the queue listing, I see the following line appear in the CUPS scheduler access log (A.B.C.D is the IP address of the Windows XP desktop system):

A.B.C.D - - [27/Sep/2006:12:36:16 +0000] "POST /printers/foo HTTP/1.1" 401 150 Pause-Printer successful-ok

Also, I can repeat this as many times as I like and the 'Printer' menu item never gets a check mark (tick) next to it as other non-CUPS printers do.

I've found a posting (dated 26 July 2006) from someone else who appears to have something similar to this problem (his "Plan B") - http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ubuntu-help/66590-advanced-help-needed-cups-w-client-ipp-samba.html

I'm not a Windows expert - or even administrator. I'd like to hear from someone who is, and who has encountered this problem, whether I have a configuration problem or whether this is a CUPS or Windows XP bug.

Surely printing from Windows XP to CUPS - via IPP, I presume this is what is being configured for me, since printing works - specifically, seeing the print queues - should be an entirely routine matter?

John A. Murdie