Why Is Printing Such a Problem?

Steve Litt slitt at troubleshooters.com
Tue Feb 1 15:08:42 GMT 2000


Hi Stan,

First step, re-confirm that you can use lpr to print to all 3 print queues
from the command line. If not, that's your problem.

Next, make sure that:

printing=bsd
printcap name=/etc/printcap

The preceding assumes you run Linux and that printcap is in /etc. Be sure
to restart Samba at this point, then see whether the problem still happens.

If there's still a problem, troubleshoot. Temporarily change the print
command to write to a log file in /tmp, and NOT delete the print file. See
what's in the log, and verify that files are collecting in [printing]'s
path. If not, check that directory's permissions. If the files are
collecting, perhaps you have the wronge print command. Find your print
command by doing this:

testparm | grep "print command"

Substituting for %s and %p, use that command to print from the command
line. If it doesn't work, hardcode a print command that does.

Just keep narrowing it down. 

My experience is thatSamba printers aren't difficult, it's just that those
tiny mistakes we all make can stop them from malfunctioning. Once you know
the testpoints, troubleshooting's a 5 minute deal. But the test points
aren't often documented.

Good luck

Steve Litt



At 01:44 AM 02/02/2000 +1100, Stan Koper wrote:
>I have Samba 2.0.6.3 (or is it 6.5?) running on a SuSE 6.2 system.  I
>currently have three Windows 95/98 clients attached to my linux machine,
>which is a firewall/gateway to the internet via cable modem.
>
>When I was using Samba 1.-something, I was able to print to the printer on
>the linux box from two of the three Windows 95 machines on the network.
>Since I upgraded to 2.0.6, I haven't been able to print anything.  I set up
>a [printers] share, and I can see three printers in network neighborhood
>(ascii, lp2, and raw).  I followed the instructions in the O'Reilly SAMBA
>book, and set up a specific hpdskjet (it's a 600) share, and it showed up
>fine in network neighborhood, but every time I try to print, I get "network
>printer no longer available".
>
>I can see the document going to the printer, but the print status is blank
>and then changes to "user intervention required".  Sometimes, when I try to
>delete the document, I get "you don't have permission to do that", but I
>think it's because the document has already been deleted, not because the
>permissions aren't set.  I can even see other documents, printed from linux
>using lpr, from the Windows 95 clients.
>
>I'm not at my network right now, so I can't print out the smb.conf file, or
>the result of testparm, but I have a dozen versions of the smb.conf file,
>each incorporating one or more suggestions made on the list to others, and
>none of them work.
>
>Why should this be so difficult?
>
>



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