[cups.bugs] Printer status: stopped. This is murder.

[Hin-Tak Leung]

Kurt and Johannes have answered with details about cups specifics -
on the error policy configuration.

There are two other approaches - Till's beh (backend error handler)
and hotplug scripts; the former is useful before the newer cups's
error policy configuration (i.e. cups 1.1.x). I believe that Mandriva - where
Till used to work - uses both: when a new usb device is plugged in, the kernel 
notifies the hotplug system, about what type of device it is, etc.
cups queues are scanned by the hotplug system on
connecting up a new/old printer (or switching off/on a printer), and either a 
new queue is created or existing queue is re-enabled from the disabled state 
(which as already explained by others is the sensible approach). Hotplug is a 
system configuration - if your distro doesn't ship a sensible or user-friendly 
default hotplug configuration, maybe you should file a bug, or better still,
contribute a patch. In fact I believe it is possible to configure hotplug to
notify dbus - the desktop messaging system - to pop up a confirmation dialog GUI
if there is somebody currently logged into the GUI console.

Kurt Pfeifle wrote:
> Silviu Marin-Caea wrote:
>> This is a case where a small bad design decision destroys all the 
>> good that CUPS does.
>>
>> The situation couldn't be more ordinary: a USB printer (HP F4180).
>>
>> If this printer is turned off when the computer is on, it will enter 
>> the stopped/paused state and remain so forever.
>>
>> To the average user this means exactly: LINUX PRINTING DOES NOT WORK.  
>> It's as simple and clear as that.
>>
>> To get it to print again, the user should give the cupsenable command 
>> or use the web interface.  Do you expect mom and pop to know about
>> "cupsenable" and "http://localhost:631"?  Really.
>>
>> Guys, you brought linux printing forward from the middle ages.  Don't 
>> leave it in the 1980s, please, we need it in the present.
>>
>> Whatever might be the reason cups doesn't retry printing, is it worth 
>> sacrificing usability so brutally?
>>
>> openSUSE 10.3, cups-1.2.12
>>
>> Thank you
> 
> 
> Your post really sounds like you know a *lot* about all kinds of pro-
> gramming.
> 
> However, even gurus need to take the time to read some basic documenta-
> tions, sometime, once they encounter an area of computing they're not
> soooo familiar with...   :-)
> 
> So my suggestion is for you to read up about "ErrorPolicy" at
> 
>    http://localhost:631/help/ref-cupsd-conf.html?TOPIC=References&QUERY=#ErrorPolicy
> 
> and after that, try to set your printer to use "retry-job" instead of
> the default "stop-printer":
> 
>    http://localhost:631/admin/?op=set-printer-options&printer_name=silvius_printer
> 
> I don't agree with you in that "CUPS printing is in the 80s"; I think it
> is well in the current century. Yes, there are a lot of small and big
> things that still could benefit from improvements. But have you ever
> thought about the question why so few people do actively work on develo-
> ping printing software?
> 
> Printing is a very challenging and complicated area to write code for,
> and it is not "sexy" (for every print spooler you have on *any* OS plat-
> form, you'll have a dozen or even a hundred music players) and not much
> rewarding.
> 
> That situation isn't much different on Windows, BTW. Microsoft didn't
> change their basic printing architecture in 20 years, and everyone who
> has to use it in a server-based computing environment (Citrix or Terminal
> Services) can confirm that it is not that much of a blast.
> 
> However, there is only so much that CUPS can do about giving feedback
> to the user. And the web interface is pretty good in what it does. A
> user will easily see when a queue is stopped, and will easily discover
> the button to restart it.
> 
> The rest of a typical Linux system (you haven't been complaining about
> a Mac) is in the hands of KDE, Gnome or other GUI programmers. You
> should consider to take your ideas and suggestions for improvements
> there -- nowadays CUPS can tell the GUI layers more about its printers,
> jobs and potential problems than these do take advantage of.
> 
> I agree that a grandma or grandpa Linux user who aren't PC experts
> will not easily discover or be taught about localhost:631. But there's
> not much *CUPS* can do about this. Or would you seriously ask CUPS to
> provide its own (non-web) GUI for alerting users about printing problems?
>