[NTLUG:Discuss] Printer Problem Next Saturday

[terry]

Ralph Miller wrote:
> I plan to take my Linux computer to the meeting next Saturday to see if someone can solve a printer problem for me.  I have a Pentium 2 300MHz PC with Red Hat Linux 9 feeding an Epson Stylus C84 printer through a parallel connection.  The printer prints CUPS statements only.  My smallest monitor is 17 inches so is heavy, but I think I can get it there.  There was a time when it printed correctly, but it started this and has not changed.
>  
> The group used to meet about 9am.  Do they still meet before 10 o'clock?
>  
> Hope some of you will help me correct this problem.
>  
> Ralph
> _______________________________________________
> https://ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> 


From: 
http://www.icon.co.za/~psheer/book/node24.html.gz#SECTION002480000000000000000


Printing Troubleshooting

Here is a convenient order for checking what is not working.

1. Check that your printer is plugged in and working. All printers have 
a way of printing a test page. Read your printer manual to find out how.

2.Check your printer cable.

3.Check your CMOS settings for your parallel port.

4.Try echo hello > /dev/lp0 to check that the port is operating. The 
printer should do something to signify that data has at least been 
received. Chapter 42 explains how to install your parallel port kernel 
module.

5. Use the lpc program to query the lpd daemon. Try help, then status 
lp, and so on.

6. Check that there is enough space in your /var and /tmp devices for 
any intermediate files needed by the print filter. A large print job may 
require hundreds of megabytes. lpd may not give any kind of error for a 
print filter failure: the print job may just disappear into nowhere. If 
you are using legacy lpr, then complain to your distribution vendor 
about your print filter not properly logging to a file.

7. For legacy lpr, stop lpd and remove all of lpd's runtime [At or 
pertaining to the program being in a running state.] files from 
/var/spool/lpd and from any of its subdirectories. (New LPRng should 
never require this step.) The unwanted files are .seq, lock, status, 
lpd.lock, and any left over spool files that failed to disappear with 
lprm (these files are recognizable by long file names with a host name 
and random key embedded in the file name). Then, restart lpd.

8. For remote queues, check that you can do forward and reverse lookups 
on both machines of both machine's host names and IP address. If not, 
you may get Host name for your address (ipaddr ) unknown error messages 
when trying an lpq. Test with the command host <ip-address> and also 
host <machine-name> on both machines. If any of these do not work, add 
entries for both machines in /etc/hosts from the example on page . Note 
that the host command may be ignorant of the file /etc/hosts and may 
still fail. Chapter 40 will explain name lookup configuration.

9. Run your print filter manually to check that it does, in fact, 
produce the correct output. For example, echo hello | enscript -p - | 
/var/spool/lpd/lp/filter > /dev/lp0.

10. Legacy lpd is a bit of a quirky package--meditate.