My wife and I are each using Kubuntu 9.10 on three separate machines. The installations aren't quite identical, we each have a slightly different mix of preferred software that we use for various purposes. Two of these computers are homebuilt desktops, one is a Dell laptop.

We have an H-P Deskjet 9800 printer that's connected by USB. It's not shared. When I want to print, I plug it in to my own port, when she wants to print, she moves the connection to her computer.

Recently, her computer stopped printing. The printer works fine from my desktop and laptop, but from her machine she continuously gets communication errors (code 5012). She no more than has to plug the printer in to her USB port (any port) for it to go haywire -- it doesn't even wait for a print job before it starts blinking the out of paper light -- there is paper loaded. When we move it to my computer and restart the printer, it works fine.

She's tried installing different printer drivers -- the one she's currently using is HPLIP. Changing drivers hasn't made any difference, though. The same problem persists.

This all started a couple of weeks ago. Before that she'd been using the printer for months with no issues.

I'm hoping there's a configuration file that all the drivers use that might be sending bad data. If not, I'm totally lost on how to handle this.

Any hints that can come this way would be greatly appreciated!