Brother printer problem

kmiernik · 2012-11-25 18:01:21

I have a Brother HL-2220 printer which worked fine with my Arch computer. I wasn't printing much from this computer (mainly from other machine with Ubuntu), the last successful print I have in logs was in May 2012. Recently I have tried to print something but to my surprise the cups didn't even recognized that printer is connected (message was 'Unplugged of turned off'). Since May 2012 there where a lot of changes, most notably I moved to the systemd.

I decided to delete printer, remove drivers and add everything again. Following the wiki for a similar model (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Brother_HL-2040) I have installed successfully driver (Brother HL2220 for CUPS) and added printer to the cups. However when I try to print, the job is endlessly paused with 'Waiting for printer to become ready' message.

I have tried to add printer with different driver, namely the HL-2170W Foomatic/hpijs-pcl5e which worked for me before. Whenever I try to do this (through localhost:631), the cups message is "Unable to add printer: Unable to copy PPD file.". The same error pops for any other foomatic driver I try.

The errors_log in /var/log/cups/ looks for this event like that:

D [25/Nov/2012:12:48:16 -0500] cupsdDeregisterPrinter(p=0xb938e930(Brother_HL-22
20_series), removeit=1)
I [25/Nov/2012:12:48:16 -0500] Setting Brother_HL-2220_series printer-is-shared 
to 0 (was 1.)
I [25/Nov/2012:12:48:16 -0500] Setting Brother_HL-2220_series printer-state to 3
 (was 5.)
D [25/Nov/2012:12:48:16 -0500] Discarding unused printer-state-changed event...
D [25/Nov/2012:12:48:16 -0500] copy_model: Running "cups-driverd cat foomatic:Br
other-HL-2170W-hpijs-pcl5e.ppd"...
E [25/Nov/2012:12:48:46 -0500] copy_model: empty PPD file
D [25/Nov/2012:12:48:46 -0500] CUPS-Add-Modify-Printer server-error-internal-err
or: Unable to copy PPD file.

Looks to me like problem with foomatic. I have reinstalled it to make sure that nothing was accidentally broken when removing old drivers, but the problem remains.

I have run out of options. Any suggestions?

ewaller · 2012-11-25 18:38:22

I know nothing of that printer, except that, based on my Google search, it appears to be a USB printer. Just to lay a foundation, does the printer show up in the output of lsusb, and what do the last few lines of dmesg and the journal look like after you connect the printer to the system?

Just looking to weed out the obvious here.

kmiernik · 2012-11-26 00:29:30

Here's the dmesg output:

[39727.006107] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 8 using ehci_hcd

, and lsusb

Bus 001 Device 008: ID 04f9:0046 Brother Industries, Ltd

Wiki (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Cups#USB_printers) says something about output:

usb 3-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

I don't have similar line. But in localhost:631 when trying to add printer (Administration->Add Printer) I see choice of my printer when it's attached, and it disappears when unplugged. Seems it is correctly seen in the system.

sultanoswing · 2012-11-26 08:30:45

I had a very similar problem (with a USB HP printer), which turned out to be a USB permission problem. Solved it thusly:

1) in a terminal (using the output of lsusb you've provided above), try:

chmod 0666 /dev/bus/usb/001/008

.

Now it should show up in your cups admin page when you "add printer".

2) As per the cups wiki, if you're using systemd, you might as well edit /etc/cups/cupsd.conf and /etc/cups/client.conf to correctly point to the new socket location, "/usr/lib/systemd/system/cups.socket" *

* I'm wondering why there isn't an updated Arch cups package reflecting that systemd is the default setup now.

kmiernik · 2012-11-26 17:45:26

Thanks sultanoswing, I will try your suggestion 1) as soon as I am back home. But I can tell you that I have my printer on the list of available printers when I do "Add printer", so it might not be the same case.

As to the point 2) I have already done that. Moreover I have, in /etc/rc.d/cups, a script that mimics systemV script but in fact communicates with the systemctl. I have done that as I have noticed that Brother install script relied on systemV scripts.

Last edited by kmiernik (2012-11-26 17:47:01)

kmiernik · 2012-11-27 00:41:45

So the problem is partially solved. I found in /usr/share/cups/model a HL2170W.ppd file. I added new printer using this particular file, selecting "provide a ppd file" option.

However it does not solves the real problem: why the foomatic cannot create ppd file anymore? Is this a problem of some directories permissions? Changed paths?

ewaller · 2012-11-27 03:27:12

I'm glad you are making progress. I am not ignoring the thread, I just had nothing to add after it looked like the USB stuff was okay.

I know you are not there, yet, but I want to remind you to mark the thread as solved when you get there.

timmo11 · 2013-10-09 11:42:11

Thanks for this post.
It gives me some hope - I couldn't work out why I couldn't copy PPD files using the <IP-addr>:631 page
Seems It is not me but a bug.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-11-25 18:01:21

Brother printer problem

#2 2012-11-25 18:38:22

Re: Brother printer problem

#3 2012-11-26 00:29:30

Re: Brother printer problem

#4 2012-11-26 08:30:45

Re: Brother printer problem

#5 2012-11-26 17:45:26

Re: Brother printer problem

#6 2012-11-27 00:41:45

Re: Brother printer problem

#7 2012-11-27 03:27:12

Re: Brother printer problem

#8 2013-10-09 11:42:11

Re: Brother printer problem

Board footer