[Solved] Cannot add network printer

[Mike]

Hello,

I'm trying to add a network printer using ipp as I usually do but for some reason I'm getting an error. I've looked on the web but I'm not seeing any solutions that apply. This is the first distro where I have run into this issue so I'm wondering if it's a missing cups package. I've also tried restarting cups with no success. Here's what's loaded with systemd:

Code: [Select]

$ systemctl list-units cups*
UNIT                 LOAD   ACTIVE SUB       DESCRIPTION
cups.path            loaded active waiting   CUPS Scheduler
cups-browsed.service loaded active running   Make remote CUPS printers available
cups.socket          loaded active listening CUPS Scheduler


Code: [Select]

netstat -l | grep cups
unix  2      [ ACC ]     STREAM     LISTENING     16085    /var/run/cups/cups.sock

Any thoughts?

[Dan]

Mike, I'm no expert on printing problems; however, just from looking in the Synaptic Package Manager (using "printer" as the search word), I noticed that the only cups package that's installed is cups-browsed. You might try installing cups (and any recommended and/or suggested packages to go with it).

Not saying that'll fix your problem...but it might?

[cheiron]

Out of interest.... What make is the printer. A lot of modern printers require you go to the manufacturers website and download a shell script for their printer. I know i had to with a few hp printers as cups wouldn't work.

[chrispop]

I also could not add my networked HP M252dw using the 'Printers' dialogue. After clicking 'Add', it would stall whilst searching for printers.
I installed Cups from Synaptic, rebooted, and then the utility worked as expected.
The downside is that Cups installs quite a lot of things, so adds a 65.7MB payload.

Chris

[teejay]

IIRC (which isn't guaranteed)   HP provide a utility called  hplip  for installing printers under Linux.
I'd look in the repos for hplip, or try HP's website.     For an HP printer, that is.

I also support cheiron's comment .... sometime Samsung printers are a trivial install, but often a visit to the maker's website gets the best or only result.

[Mike]

Thank you all for your suggestions. Dan was the winner this time! After installing cups and a crap-load of dependencies, it works now. I was hoping to not have to download over 60mb of packages but at least it works. At some point I might try trimming some fat by process of elimination.

[Dan]

Not sure how it would affect something like CUPS, but you could try one of my favorites...the infamous...

sudo apt-get install cups --no-install-recommends

Normally, I'll do a regular apt-get install command just to see what all will be installed...then hit n to cancel it.

Then, I run the --no-install-recommends command so that I can compare the two.

When used wisely, it really cuts down on things you don't really need.

[Polkie]

Out of interest.... What make is the printer. A lot of modern printers require you go to the manufacturers website and download a shell script for their printer. I know i had to with a few hp printers as cups wouldn't work.

This is what I had to do.

[berliner]

I have a brother printer-scanner, model  DCP-195C.

There is a script on the brother-website which works well. It installs the printer drivers as well as the scanner drivers.
On a 64-bit system and Ubuntu 12 or 14 upwards, the user must copy some files from usr/lib64 to usr/lib , then printer and scanner works fine.

But problems with this routine started yesterday with wattOS and Ubuntu Mate 12.10 .
The routine installation did not work anymore.

What a luck that I found this thread.

Dan gave the solution.
I installed cups with Synaptic , restarted, then ran the brother-script again ... and now printer and scanner functions work well.

Thanks to all, especially to Dan.