Half my printers disappeared

[itfellow]

Hi,

I am running OpenServer 5.0.5b. I had several printers installed and working perfectly, some network printers and others local (through Digi concentrator). When I went to add another network printer (HP JetDirect) using the HP printer manager, the installation seemed to go OK, but when it was finished, not only could I not see my new printer using lpstat -v, but half of my other printers vanished (some of each kind).

I have tried rebooting, then adding some printers back in through printer manager, then rebooting, but I can't get the lost printers back. When I add a local printer back in through scoadmin printer manager, it appears in the list, but I cannot verify status (get the error message that printer manager was unable to retrieve printer details). If I close printer manager and go back in, my printer is gone again.

I have verified all files in /usr/spool/lp/admins/lp/printers and /usr/spool/lp/admins/lp/interfaces.

Any suggestions?

 

[stanhubble]

I have seen this happen with a corrupt /etc/printcap file.
See if there is an entry for the HP network printer and if there is remove it and see if your status requests complete.

 

[itfellow]

I checked the printcap file and it looks fine.

The thing that has really got me confused is that, even if I add a new printer in using 'duplicate' in the printer manager, printer manager still can't examine any details on the new printer. For instance, when I go to look at details newly installed printer, I get the error message

Failed to retrieve the following attribute(s) of 1:
==>printerInterface
==>printerDevice
==>printerRemoteAccessStatus

The interface file is there, the /etc/inittab is set properly, the printer is on, and the device is correct, yet I'm told it can't find any of these?

 

[itfellow]

I still need help on this, so let me clarify something:

I have gotten the printers to work by adding them back in manually using lpadmin, like this:
/usr/lib/lpadmin -p P1 -v /dev/ttya13 -m standard
enable P1
accept P1

However, if I bounce the print service (lpshut, lpsched) or bounce the server, all of the same printers are lost and I have to do the above all over again. I have placed all the problem printers in a script that I can run, but I still need to know what is wrong here. Something got corrupted somewhere, but I can't figure out what.

 

[stanhubble]

In /usr/spool/lp/admins/lp/interfaces make sure that there are only entries for local printers.
In /usr/spool/lp/admins/lp/printers that there are directories for all your printers.
in each of the local printer directories you should have a minimum of the following files:
alert.sh
alert.var
configuration
users.deny

owner and group should be lp

in each of the remote printer directories you should need only the configuration file. in the configuration file
a minimum of
Device: printername@host

make sure that there is a directory in /usr/spool/lpd for each of your remote printers.
also try removing /usr/spool/lp/system/pstatus it will get recreated

make sure /usr/lib/lpsched and /usr/lib/lpd are running. if you are still having problems try posting your /etc/printcap (cut and paste if possible)

 

[motoslide]

I ran into this same situation recently and it drove me nuts. In my case, the solution was one that Stan referenced above. The Client had a bogus directory in /usr/spool/lp/admins/lp/printers. It looks like they had created a printer long ago, and never really deleted it properly. On that system, everytime they rebooted, any printer whose directory would follow the bogus entry dropped out of sight.
Make sure you only have legitimate directories there. (Also verify ownership, permissions, etc.)