# Printing: Media Tray Empty?

## unReal

Greetings,

I have setup my Epson Stylus C60 printer (USB) according to the Gentoo Printing How-To. However, the printer is not working at all. When I check the error log I find that it says that the Media Tray is Empty.

Anyone have any ideas on how to solve this?

Thanks in advance.

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## ixion

I'm sorry I don't have a solution, but I am having the exact same issue with my Stylus C62. It worked like a beaut in Slackware and Mandrake. Just a matter of time to figure it out, I guess.

Although, the way I got it to work in Slack was to install the cups package, then the espgs package after a reboot. With gentoo I've emerged cups, emerge gimp-print, and then foomatic. I am clueless what to do from here...

I will post back here when/if I find a solution..

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## ixion

I unmerged all of it, and re-emerged CUPS and emerged ESP Ghostscript this time (instead of gimp-print and foomatic), although I get the same error. I have found a little on the CUPS bug discussion group, but they mention editing a 'backend/usb.c' file. I have 'backend/usb' but 'usb' is a folder not a file.

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## seetru

media tray empty means out of paper

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## dannypoo

just a suggestion,

check that the paper size is correct

i had that problem (was covering up all the other problems that i am yet to solve) and i found the paper size was set to letter - changed it to A4 (what i'm using) and the error went away

nb i did actually have to change it twice cos it didn't register the 1st time...

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## dl1vr8r

I'm having this exact problem with my Samsung ML-1430.  Everything is setup properly, everything installs OK.  When I print something no errors are raised, just nothing happens.  In /var/log/cups/error_log it says "Media tray empty!", but there is obviously plenty of paper in the printer.  I have checked paper size and it's all set to the correct values.  

I've been trying to solve this for weeks and I'm at my wit's end.  Having to reboot into windows just to print a fucking page is ridiculous.

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## ixion

it appears to be gentoo specific since I've NEVER had this problem (or any problem pretty much) with CUPS in Slackware. The difference with Slack and gentoo is that CUPS and ESPGS were packages in Slack, and in gentoo you emerge them. I've read some in the discussion groups on the CUPS website, and the developers are stumped as well! This is actually kindof ridiculus, but with everyone's help I think we can nab this issue. I'm going to be working on this issue throughout the week and will post back my findings. I'm not the most experienced Linux user, but I will do my best.

Anyone with ANYTHING they think would be helpful please post here!  :Very Happy: 

and I'm off to troubleshooting...

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## ixion

"and a mighty WHOOT! was heard throughout the land of Linux!"

I'm printing! Well... I will try my best to let you guys know what I did, but to be honest, I am unsure what exactly solved my problem. Here goes:

I had a plan of attack written out. I first unmerged CUPS and ESP Ghostscript (I had merged LPRng, but forgot about it, which caused problems for me throughout. In other words, be sure to unmerge LPRng before emerging CUPS or any printing software. LPRng is evil to CUPS  :Wink:  ). I went to CUPS site and downloaded the CUPS and ESPGhostscript source files. Now I did NOT download the latest ones. I downloaded the version that I had successfully used in Slackware (CUPS-1.1.15, ESPGS-7.05.2). I './configure, make, gmake, make install, gmake installed'ed CUPS, reboot. I proceeded to copy the 'cups.sh' file to '/usr/bin' and added '/usr/bin/cups.sh start' to my '/etc/conf.d/local.start' file, then rebooted (to all you veterans: I know this is as sloppy and 'rigged' as you can get, but hey... I was trying). After the reboot, I get a happy "cups: started schedular" in my local start section on bootup. Logged in as root, then './configure, make, make install'ed ESPGS, rebooted again. Logged in as normal user, started X, opened up 'http://localhost:631/admin' (the main CUPS screen was broken due to my sloppy install of CUPS), and did not get the 'Media Tray Empty' message but a 'No Pages Found!' message. As the current error message is more rampant, I considered it making progress, but not a solution. Well to make an already long story short, I rebooted, merged CUPS (on top of the version I installed), rebooted, merge the Masked ESPGS - 'ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge app-text/ghostscript' (also ontop of the version I previously installed), rebooted once more, logged in as normal user, and viola! I'm printing!

Now, I have not rebooted since I did this, so I don't know if it's consistent. Also, some programs don't print correctly, therefore I just use the command line for them (ie, 'lpr text.pdf'), and it works like a beaut.

I'm thinking what may have solved it was emerging the latest/masked ESPGS (7.05.6), but I can't be certain. Maybe the CUPS in the portage tree is missing something that compiling/installing the full version from the CUPS website helped fill in. Maybe I just got lucky. I don't honestly, know. I will definitely post back here if it turns out to be inconsistent, and if I can make any modifications to it.

A Note to you Linux vet's out there: I know this walk-through most likely makes you shudder, but for not having a whole lot of Linux experience, this worked for me. Please post here your critiques and pick it apart as I'm sure someone would like a better walkthrough than what I've provided.

I sincerely hope this helps you guys out. Maybe this will be a start for the CUPS organization? I'm going to post some of this in their bug groups and see if it helps.

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## Malakin

 *Quote:*   

> I'm having this exact problem with my Samsung ML-1430

 

If it uses the Samsung gdi driver you might find my post at the bottom of this thread helpful:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=31195

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## ixion

well it was too good to be true, I guess... I booted my laptop back up today, and am once again getting the Media Tray message. This will be the deciding factor of whether I stay with gentoo or not... is there an alternative to CUPS? The developers didn't seem real interested in taking care of this problem, they claim it's a problem with the printer, although I purchased Epson because it was recommended to use with Linux! I've never had this problem with slackware or mandrake...

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## Chaos

ok I had this very annoying problem also.  I haven't rebooted, but I don't expect a problem since cups survived a service restart and lived to work afterwards.  Anyway, what I did was unmerged gimp-print-cups, remerged ghostscript 7.05.6 (because it wouldn't remerge with gimp-print-cups installed...dumb...see https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=42358)

and then merged gimp-print-cups again.  Everything works fine (that statement better not come back to bite me in the ass) so far, so hopefully that will work for you guys also.

In summary:

```
emerge -C gimp-print-cups

emerge ghostscript

emerge gimp-print-cups
```

Also make sure you have cups in your USE variable.  Best of luck.

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## ixion

You're a genius! :Smile:  I didn't even think about possibly having to have both installed. I believe Slack came with gimp-print installed automatically, hence it working. I just got done with a fresh install, and did an emerge on cups, started cups, emerge ghostscript, then emerged gimp-print-cups (which I only emerged gimp-print before, any difference??).. anyway, I did have trouble with the Epson Stylus C62 drivers, so I went ahead and stuck with the Epson Stylus C60 drivers which work like a champ!!

Thanks so much for your help!

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## Praxxus

For whatever reason, the latest ghostscript ebuilds do not build/install ijs-config. 

Without ijs-config, the gimp-print ebuild will not build ijsgimpprint.  ijsgimpprint is necessary for, at least, the Epson Stylus C62 PPD.  So here's a work around, that is actually posted somewhere else on the forum (found by searching for "ijsgimpprint"):

```
emerge -C gimp-print-cups **OR** emerge -C gimp-print

emerge -C ghostscript

emerge ghostscript

cd /tmp

tar -jxvf /usr/portage/distfiles/espgs-7.05.5-source.tar.bz2

cd /tmp/espgs-7.05.5/ijs/

./configure --prefix=/usr

make

make install

emerge gimp-print
```

That assumes you've installed v7.05.5 of ghostscript.  Otherwise, substitute your version number.

You may or may not need to unemerge gimp-print-cups to emerge gimp-print.  I couldn't get the C62 gimp-print-cups drivers to work, but it seems to be working fine with gimp-print!

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## eNTi

er... why is this ijsgimpprint not in the portage tree? maybe it's deprecated?

where did you get that info anyhow? it seems that it ijs is integrated into the ebuild.

eNTi-Lair ghostscript # grep ijs *

ghostscript-7.05.5.ebuild:      myconf="--with-ijs --with-omni"

ghostscript-7.05.5-r1.ebuild:   myconf="--with-ijs --with-omni"

ghostscript-7.05.5-r2.ebuild:   myconf="--with-ijs --with-omni"

ghostscript-7.05.6.ebuild:      myconf="--with-ijs --with-omni"

ghostscript-7.05.6-r1.ebuild:   myconf="--with-ijs --with-omni"

i could cry. my printer did work, a few days ago but now it's doing nothing again. i don't have no warning, no error, just nothing.

i've got an epson stylus c82 + driver from epson.

printing seems to be one of the most confusing things in linux. i had so many problems with all that stuff. why isn't it possible to make ONE ebuild that will make printing work? what is it good for, to have that distinction between gimp-print-cups and gimp-print? is there a reason for that? not that i could think of a meaningful one...

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## Praxxus

Where did I get that info?  By poking around on here, reading through my CUPS logs (set to "debug"), and building ghostscript manually to make sure the ghostscript e-build did what I thought it did.

I know there is a "--with-ijs" entry in the e-build, but it doesn't do what we need it to in this case.

Try running:

```
qpkg -l ghostscript |grep ijs
```

and see what you get.  I don't get any hits for "ijs-config" or ijs header files.  If you do, then there's obviously something out of whack with my Gentoo setup.    :Wink: 

Try setting your CUPS log output to "debug," and then grep your logs for "ijsgimpprint."  If you are getting a "file not found" error, follow the instructions in my above post, and hopefully it will fix things for you.  It definitely did for me --now verified through numerous printer and computer restarts.

----------------

ON EDIT:  Philip de Lisle has already filed a bug report, and (someone) has built a Ghostscript e-build that WILL install IJS.  Please see:

https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16007

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## eNTi

k. solved my problem, by emerging cups-gimp-print 4.3.5 and ghostscript 7.05.6-r1. ghostscript refused to compile with gimp-print-cups 4.3.8-r1. i did nothing with ijs-config whatsoever. it's not even installed.

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## hamhh

I can confirm the recommendation works for my test system with Canon 

BJC-3000 on the parralel port.  Gimp-print-cups failed to emerge however.  Used gimp-print instead.

Also test print the HP LaserJet 5L on the router parralel port.

Printed immediately without delay in both cases.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 *Praxxus wrote:*   

> For whatever reason, the latest ghostscript ebuilds do not build/install ijs-config. 
> 
> Without ijs-config, the gimp-print ebuild will not build ijsgimpprint.  ijsgimpprint is necessary for, at least, the Epson Stylus C62 PPD.  So here's a work around, that is actually posted somewhere else on the forum (found by searching for "ijsgimpprint"):
> 
> ```
> ...

   :Wink:   :Wink:   :Wink:   :Wink:   :Wink: 

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