Argh ! I can't stand CUPS anymore. Every upgrade breaks it. And then the next upgrade fixes it without me ever understanding WTF is wrong with it. It's like my 5th call for help in 2 years on this forum.

This time the symptoms are: the 1st page after a reboot prints halfway and stays in the printer while the 'data incoming' LED blinks. Forever. The job status says "Pending [...] Unable to send data to printer."

Doing a service restart doesn't help. I have a huge error_log bug here's the short version:
Code:
$ grep -v -C 5 "^D \|^I " /var/log/cups/error_log 
D [06/Sep/2012:19:29:00 +0200] cupsdSetBusyState: newbusy="Active clients and dirty files", busy="Active clients"
D [06/Sep/2012:19:29:00 +0200] cupsdMarkDirty(P-----)
D [06/Sep/2012:19:29:00 +0200] cupsdSetBusyState: newbusy="Active clients and dirty files", busy="Active clients and dirty files"
D [06/Sep/2012:19:29:00 +0200] cupsdRegisterPrinter(p=0x7fd0fa7ea150(Stylus-Photo-R1800))
D [06/Sep/2012:19:29:00 +0200] Updating TXT record for EPSON Stylus Photo R1800 @ penguin (_ipp._tcp)
E [06/Sep/2012:19:29:00 +0200] Failed to update TXT record for EPSON Stylus Photo R1800 @ penguin: -2
D [06/Sep/2012:19:29:00 +0200] Registering Avahi printer Stylus-Photo-R1800 with name "EPSON Stylus Photo R1800 @ penguin" and type "_ipp._tcp,_cups,_universal"
D [06/Sep/2012:19:29:00 +0200] Adding TXT record for EPSON Stylus Photo R1800 @ penguin (_ipp._tcp)
D [06/Sep/2012:19:29:00 +0200] Adding TXT record for EPSON Stylus Photo R1800 @ penguin (_cups._sub._ipp._tcp)
D [06/Sep/2012:19:29:00 +0200] Adding TXT record for EPSON Stylus Photo R1800 @ penguin (_universal._sub._ipp._tcp)
D [06/Sep/2012:19:29:00 +0200] cupsdMarkDirty(P-----)
--
D [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] Returning IPP successful-ok for Get-Notifications (/) from localhost
D [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] cupsdSetBusyState: newbusy="Printing jobs and dirty files", busy="Active clients, printing jobs, and dirty files"
D [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] cupsdReadClient: 17 WAITING Closing on EOF
D [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] cupsdCloseClient: 17
D [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] cupsdSetBusyState: newbusy="Printing jobs and dirty files", busy="Printing jobs and dirty files"
E [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] [Job 156] Unable to send data to printer.
D [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] [Job 156] Set job-printer-state-message to "Unable to send data to printer.", current level=ERROR
D [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] [Job 156] libusb write operation returned fffffffc.
D [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] [Job 156] Sent 495616 bytes...
D [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] cupsdMarkDirty(-----S)
D [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] cupsdSetBusyState: newbusy="Printing jobs and dirty files", busy="Printing jobs and dirty files"
--
D [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] cupsdSetBusyState: newbusy="Active clients, printing jobs, and dirty files", busy="Active clients, printing jobs, and dirty files"
D [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] cupsdMarkDirty(P-----)
D [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] cupsdSetBusyState: newbusy="Active clients, printing jobs, and dirty files", busy="Active clients, printing jobs, and dirty files"
D [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] cupsdRegisterPrinter(p=0x7fd0fa7ea150(Stylus-Photo-R1800))
D [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] Updating TXT record for EPSON Stylus Photo R1800 @ penguin (_ipp._tcp)
E [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] Failed to update TXT record for EPSON Stylus Photo R1800 @ penguin: -2
D [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] Registering Avahi printer Stylus-Photo-R1800 with name "EPSON Stylus Photo R1800 @ penguin" and type "_ipp._tcp,_cups,_universal"
D [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] Adding TXT record for EPSON Stylus Photo R1800 @ penguin (_ipp._tcp)
D [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] Adding TXT record for EPSON Stylus Photo R1800 @ penguin (_cups._sub._ipp._tcp)
D [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] Adding TXT record for EPSON Stylus Photo R1800 @ penguin (_universal._sub._ipp._tcp)
D [06/Sep/2012:19:31:00 +0200] cupsdMarkDirty(P-----)