# usb printer not detected

## disperato

Hi,

I've a sad problem with my usb printer: it worked fine with cups installed but I've not used it for a long time (and so I couldn't understand what's happened working on my system and possibly  has to be fixed) and it now just does not work. It's not a hw failure, though, 'cause it works under other OSes. As a long-term gentoo user I've been investigating for days and it's becoming frustrating: at this point I really need help. Further my system is not easy: it's a amd64 installed from stage 1 (august 2005.0).

When problems popped up, I realized usb device nodes where not created in /dev (maybe something I did onto the kernel). So I've been googling and working on it for some days far now. After that I can see devices dynamically created, but the usb pen is correctly detected, not the same for the printer (it worked fine some months ago with the same system, gentoo and the same kernel).

Here is some information:

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> from rc-update -s
> 
>  coldplug | boot
> ...

 

 *Quote:*   

> I've read about baselayout issues so I emerged the last version available:
> 
> baselayout-1.12.0_pre6-r3

 

In the kernel:

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> CONFIG_USB_DEVICEFS=y
> 
> CONFIG_PROC_FS=y
> ...

 

and other no-conflicting options are activated but not listed to make this message readable

the output if I plug in the usb cable (udevmonitor):

 *Quote:*   

> UEVENT[1138037248.049383] add@/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:10.0/usb2/2-1
> 
> UEVENT[1138037248.050960] add@/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:10.0/usb2/2-1/2-1:1.0
> 
> UDEV  [1138037248.067714] add@/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:10.0/usb2/2-1
> ...

 

(and /dev/usb/lp0 is created and usblp insmod automagically)

but cat /proc/bus/usb/devices gives:

 *Quote:*   

> T:  Bus=04 Lev=00 Prnt=00 Port=00 Cnt=00 Dev#=  1 Spd=12  MxCh= 2
> 
> B:  Alloc=  0/900 us ( 0%), #Int=  0, #Iso=  0
> 
> D:  Ver= 1.10 Cls=09(hub  ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS= 8 #Cfgs=  1
> ...

 

So this is what happen with cups (totally resetted and re-emerged to the last version):

it lets me to add a printer named BrotherHL1430 (mine) after I put the .ppd fle from the linuxprinting database in the rigth location:

 *Quote:*   

> /usr/share/cups/model/Brother-HL-1430-hl1250.ppd

 

and to set it.

From /etc/cups/printers.conf:

 *Quote:*   

> # Printer configuration file for CUPS v1.1.22
> 
> # Written by cupsd on Mon Jan 23 16:22:11 2006
> 
> <DefaultPrinter Brother>
> ...

 

And others minor options from the browser pointed to localhost:631, passwd, ecc.

Well: the printer start and no error messages pop out, but when a job is sent to the printer, its data-led turns on, but there is no output.

Every job is aborted, test page too. No luck restarting cupsd and the printer itself, neither from power nor from software (browser interface).

If I try to restart the job, the nigthmare of cups appears suddenly: "client-error-not-possible"

Please give me help and as more assistance yo can 'cause I'm so green and desperate after days of wrestling with this issue  :Sad: 

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## disperato

The printer is now detected: checked with lsusb.

ok, by examining /var/log/cups/error_log (debug2 option in /etc/cups/cupsd.conf)I found that the problem is related to postscript.

ghostscript-esp segfault every time, ghostscript-gnu works but not with cups.

The nightmare goes on.

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## Headrush

What is the postscript error? I had a similar problem with it crashing on some images.

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## disperato

 *Headrush wrote:*   

> What is the postscript error? I had a similar problem with it crashing on some images.

 

I've deleted the old error_log but was something like "cannot render" or "cannot do postscript render". By the way that problem was surely related to the ghostscript-eps, beacuse I already experienced segfaults with that program in the past and problems with ggv. The package ghostscript-gnu worked fine with ggv but lead to problems with cups (in my humble experience on gentoo 64).

The solution:

Unmask the last version of ghostscript-eps 8.15 from the portage/profile/package.mask end emerge it. There was not a new version from ages and the last one works fine. Just a little piece of advice: pay attention to never re-emerge x11-libs and xorg stuff on amd64 (mask them in your /etc/portage/package.mask  with the "<" and ">", just to not block emerging programs which could depend from them): every time I've re-emerged I was caught in troubles with xstart   not founding some libraries.

After that re-emerge cups and ggv (if you use/like it) and setup again.

In case you're talking about xfig, it did these crashes some time ago and I fixed it misteriously (i.e. I cant' remember how I did it). It's happening now too and I'm traying to get rid of him by using jfig.

Hope this post could help you.

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## Headrush

 *disperato wrote:*   

> Just a little piece of advice: pay attention to never re-emerge x11-libs and xorg stuff on amd64 (mask them in your /etc/portage/package.mask  with the "<" and ">", just to not block emerging programs which could depend from them): every time I've re-emerged I was caught in troubles with xstart   not founding some libraries.

 

Hmmm, could be something specific to your setup. I have emerged and re-emerged various versions of xorg-x11 on amd64 and never had a single problem.

Maybe you needed to do the revdep- rebuild to fix packages linked against old libraries.

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