# CUPS Headache

## rainer

It happens times and again: In a perfectly working network environment, without any apparent reason, one CUPS client simply refuses to see the CUPS server, while all other machines continue printing as before.

Nothing helps - reinstalling CUPS on the local machine doesn't, copying /etc/cups/cupsd.conf from a machine that works without issues doesn't...

There is one solution that keeps me printing at least - adding

```
BrowsePoll 192.168.1.1
```

to the configuration file. But hardcoding server addresses is essentially wrong, isn't it?

If somebody had a good idea what to do about it, I would be extremely grateful...

Without much hope,

Rainer

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## audiodef

Is there anything different about the machine that's not working? Maybe you should post emerge --info and your cups config for that machine so we can see what's happening. 

I say, if you get it working somehow, it's working, but then again, I don't know whether hard-coding addresses is "bad" or not.

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## rainer

The point is that it used to work perfectly well and all of a sudden, without me (knowingly) changing a bit, the local CUPS client simply stopped seeing the server. All machines in my home network are different, but they all use the same central services from a small FitPC with a standard Gentoo installation (not the one that came with the FitPC).

The cupsd.conf that used to work and stopped doing so, is here, and this one is the replacement that is working perfectly well on another machine without inserting the "BrowsePoll 192.168.1.2" line, which I need only here and only since a few days.

This has heppened before, and as mysteriously as it appears, the problem goes away at some point. I know that this doesn't sound credible in a computer context, but it does happen!

As to hardcoding server addresses, I agree that as long as I can get my work done, that should be just fine. The machine in question is a laptop which I use a lot on my travels, so there have been opportunities where I could use a CUPS server in a different environment, and this could be a problem. I'd rather understand what's going on, and correct it once for all.

Thanks anyway,

Rainer

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## baaann

Not quite what you are describing, but could it be that the printer is simply "stopped" on the client? I have an openvpn client that because the default is "On Error = Stop Printer", cups stops the printer each time a print is attempted with the network unavailable and the printer has to be restarted via the web interface before printing will recommence.

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## rainer

Sorry for not being really clear, but this is "spooky"...

Therr are three printers attached to the server, and all of them respond without any difficulty to print requests from all (other) clients.

The laptop concerned simply doesn't see the CUPS server without that "BrowsePoll xxx" line. And the spooky thing is that this "blindness" comes without apparent reason - and that's what I would lover to find out!

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## dE_logics

Are you using a DHCP server to assign addresses to the client? If so you might have a permission problem. Also keep a look at Order and BrowseOrder directive.

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