Comments on: cups — fixing cups printer problem: lpd failed

By: akbar

akbar — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:04:49 +0000

It is not work for me. CUPS seems to simply rewrite the file "printers.conf" file to what it was before, i.e.
State Stopped
StateMessage /usr/lib/cups/backend/lpd failed

just after giving print from my snow leopard and going to State Idle after resuming the printer manually after deleting the queue only

By: Shashank

Shashank — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:35:05 +0000

Why not simply enable the printer?
/usr/bin/enable $printername works for me.

Other option could be to increase the timeout option from the configuration file for cups.

By: Hal Huntley

Hal Huntley — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:37:32 +0000

I put the error message in to google and yours was the first hit. Well written documentation. I followed the advice and it worked just fine. In our case, it was a xerox printer where one of the color's toner was out for a while and so would not print. After the toner was replaced, obviously the "new" state of the printer didn't get back to the linux box (fc9).

By: Jakob Cornelis

Jakob Cornelis — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 02:42:31 +0000

It did not work for me. CUPS seems to simply rewrite the file "printers.conf" file to what it was before, i.e.
State Stopped
StateMessage /usr/lib/cups/backend/lpd failed

By: AIX Dude

AIX Dude — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 23:39:17 +0000

I'm an AIX SysAdmin but a newcomer to SUSE Linux (SLES10). Used your two-line replacement and cups restart solution and it worked GREAT! Your article was well-written–concise and easy to understand. Thanks a bunch from a Filipino dude in sunny Southern California.

SUSE Linux 2.6.16.60-0.21-default

By: Jefferson

Jefferson — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:15:53 +0000

why not use cupsenable to re-enable printer??

By: Kyle

Kyle — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:17:05 +0000

You saved me a lot of time. Thanks very much. Suse Linux 2.6.22.5-31……

By: Koen

Koen — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:02:57 +0000

Worked on this on and off for a couple of days. Didn't know where to start searching (Linux box or MS Windows with LPD); Google's second hit for "troubleshoot lpd" directed me to your site. This solved the problem. Thanks !

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:44:15 +0000

Thanks very much to you and to Google.
I learned something new today and the punters are happy, which is why we are here .

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:38:49 +0000

Thanks for this…
The sudo sed -i -e 's/ErrorPolicy stop-printer/ErrorPolicy retry-job/' /etc/cups/printers.conf
and /etc/init.d/cups restart worked a treat.

—Redhat enterprise 5—

By: Keith

Keith — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 17:08:37 +0000

This worked perfect! Thank God for the dsplabs & the internet! (It's sudo /etc/init.d/cupsys restart in 7.10 in case someone doesn't know.)

By: Carmen Rodriguez

Carmen Rodriguez — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:52:35 +0000

Thank you very much!

Excellent post, very esay to follow

By: Gimili

Gimili — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:15:37 +0000

50 14 * * 1,2,3,4,5 sudo sed -i -e '/StateMessage Paused/d' -e 's/State Stopped/State Idle/' /etc/cups/printers.conf
55 14 * * 1,2,3,4,5 /etc/init.d/cups restart

I put this in a cron job. Darn lpd printer kept getting paused. This seems to be the cure to make sure it doen't get left paused. Thanks!!!

By: DanB

DanB — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:01:11 +0000

Thanks for the solution! The restart commands did not work for me in Ubuntu 7.10
service cups restart or /etc/init.d/cups restart

So I just fire up cups http://localhost:631/
Went to the printer and hit restart. All fixed.

Your instructions made it easy to fix.

By: Alexander

Alexander — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 06:48:43 +0000

Thank you man. Your post just save me

By: Carlos

Carlos — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:38:11 +0000

Dude, I love you!

By: Radhika

Radhika — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:40:38 +0000

Hey it was a real useful solution. I was getting the error - /usr/lib/cups/backend/socket failed and it still worked. Thanks a lot.

By: Kamil

Kamil — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:38:19 +0000

Greetings from Brisbane George, I am very happy this info was useful to you!

By: George Hickey

George Hickey — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:18:12 +0000

Just though you might like to know - your solution is helping keep the blood supply in Ireland flowing! Nice one guys!! Cheers, G.

By: Godders

Godders — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:36:03 +0000

Worked a treat, you rock!