[cups] CUPS Disaster: printer queues going AOL or becoming disfunctional

[Johannes Meixner]

Hello,

On Jun 29 19:04 Robert Heller wrote (excerpt):
> Printing a test page resulted in a
> client-error-document-format-not-supported type of error.
> Deleting and re-installing the print queues fixed it.
> Why did this happen?
> And why does re-installing the print queues fix it?

At least for me impossible to find out from your information.

> (Longing for the good old days of LPD! -- CUPS can be a total pain
> in the butt at times.)

Using a LPD spooler won't help when the filtering fails.

Regardless that CUPS reported the error, very likely the root cause
is not CUPS itself but elsewhere - in particular because a
"document-format-not-supported" error indicates that "something"
with the filtering got "somehow" messed up.

Usually it is not CUPS itself that converts the original data
that your application had submitted as print job to CUPS.
Actually CUPS calls various "external" programs that do the data
conversion.

When different CUPS versions in different Linux distribution versions
make a difference regarding the filtering, the usual reason is not
CUPS itself but that different Linux distributions use different
"external" programs (or different versions of the "external" programs).

For example after printer driver software upgrades, the filtering for
an existing print queue may no longer work because print queue's PPD
may no longer match the upgraded driver software.

I assume the root cause is "something" in the particular Linux distributions
that you use so that you may get better help from the particular Linux
distributions mailing lists whereto you also already reported your issue.


Kind Regards
Johannes Meixner
-- 
SUSE LINUX Products GmbH -- Maxfeldstrasse 5 -- 90409 Nuernberg -- Germany
HRB 16746 (AG Nuernberg) GF: Jeff Hawn, Jennifer Guild, Felix Imendoerffer