This damn printer refuses to work!

[forrestgowland]

Hi all,

I have a dell 1720 usb laser printer. Ive used it in the past with ubuntu and debian and its always worked fine. Not any more aparently!
It started printing out in symbols, like one line at a time, any time I tried to print anything (pdf's and basic text).

Its using the correct driver that I have always used. (Generic PCL 6/PCL XL Printer Foomatic/pxlmono)

Ive tried reinstalling the printer aproximatley seventy-three times. It works fine for about one print job and I think AWESOME ITS FREAKIN WORKING. But then goes back to printing its jibberish one-line, thousand-page tripe. I have reinstalled cups, cups-bsd, cups-client, and anything else cups-ish. And I purged everything and made sure no config files were left anywhere. Still it has the same problem. Works fine for one or two jobs, then breaks itself. I made a debian virtual machine and set the printer up on that... Does the exact same thing. It always works on windows however. Even after it starts doing its jibberish nonsense I can plug it into my laptop running Windows 8 and it works fine. So what the hell???? I have no idea how to solve this one.

errorlog.txtaccesslog.txt


printers.conf:

# Printer configuration file for CUPS v1.6.2
# Written by cupsd
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE WHEN CUPSD IS RUNNING
<Printer Dell_Laser_Printer_1720>
UUID urn:uuid:426627d3-8eac-3590-7dd8-8cb8365a64c2
Info Dell Laser Printer 1720
Location
MakeModel Generic PCL 6/PCL XL Printer Foomatic/pxlmono
DeviceURI usb://Dell/Laser%20Printer%201720?serial=6229G8P
State Idle
StateTime 1373528234
Type 8433692
Accepting Yes
Shared No
JobSheets none none
QuotaPeriod 0
PageLimit 0
KLimit 0
OpPolicy default
ErrorPolicy retry-job
</Printer>



Cheers.

[kurt18947]

The only thing I know about Dell printers is that they're usually rebadged Lexmarks. Lexmark has linux drivers for at least some lasers. If you could figure out the Lexmark twin of your Dell, you could do some looking there. I believe there were CUPS updates recently, I wonder if those updates are causing you grief.

[forrestgowland]

Yeah maybe... So maybe ill try and find the appropriate lexmark driver? Did you have a look at the error log i posted? It says stuff about bad driver. Still its really weird how it works fine for a job or two and only then starts to break itself. You would think if it were a bad driver then it wouldn't work initially, right? Super frustrating. Can I get an older version of cups from somewhere to see if that fixes anything?

[VinDSL]

Have you fooled around with this yet? http://127.0.0.1:631/

Usually, I will find a fix in there, sooner or later...

[VinDSL]

BTW, goto the -> Administration tab (in case you haven't used it before).

That allows you to change the CUPS config, from your browser.

[forrestgowland]

I first configured it though the Gnome printers config thing. But then I configured it though we the web interface a couple times aswell. Whats the best way to completely remove EVERYTHING to do with cups so I can reinstall and start fresh?
I used:

dpkg --purge printer-driver-gutenprint cups cups-bsd cups-client lprng

[VinDSL]

Whats the best way to completely remove EVERYTHING to do with cups so I can reinstall and start fresh?

I'll let someone else answer that. I'm not a CUPS expert.

A couple of things...

I've had a few printers hooked up to this computer, over the years -- Centronics and USB. Each time, all I had to do is plug them in and turn them on. Each time, when I went to the printer page, they were already automagically installed, config'ed correctly, and waiting for use -- without me having to do anything.

However, sometimes I hook this thing up to a network printer and/or a print server, and I need to manually configure things. In my experience, if a particular config doesn't work (such as, I misspelled something, chose the wrong printer driver, wrong IP or whatever -- editing the config never works. It's much better to delete the printer, and start over again.

Put another way, if I've successfully installed a printer, and I just want to change the name, and such, then editing/saving the config usually works. However, once the config doesn't work, it's usually fubar forever, and starting all over again, with a new config (add a printer, even though it's the same printer) is the only way to guarantee success.

CUPS is strange. It has a mind of its own. I understand your frustration...

[forrestgowland]

I deleted the printer then installed the printer repeatedly, then I reinstalled cups repeatedly. Ive decided im going to back up my home drive, reinstall ubuntu and see if the problem persists. If it does Im going to find a hammer and beat the sh*t out of it and see if that helps. If it doesnt i think im going to buy this --> http://www.megabuy.com.au/hp-ce866a-...r-p266392.html for $220 seems like a good deal.
I believe HP printers are very well supported with linux?
If the new printer still has the same problem I'm going to take the same hammer and beat my skull in with it, lol.
Ill let you know how it goes.

[VinDSL]

Heh! Good luck, man!

[forrestgowland]

Well it didnt work.... uuuggghhhhhhh

Does anyone know how to downgrade cups? Surely this must be the reason? Im sure it was working fine when I first installed raring but who knows...