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Cups is not working on my Dell laptop. Namely I cannot add any printer through the system config printer, nor can I detect a printer through lpinfo -v in the terminal. I tried all the usual things, e.g. reinstalling cups and also restoring /etc/cups/cupsd.conf from /usr/share/cups/cupsd.conf.default but nothing works. I am trying to install a canon printer but am completely at a loss and any help would be greatly appreciated!

To give a bit more info, if I type in the terminal lpstat -r I get the output:

scheduler is not running

If I check the status in terminal with 'sudo systemctl status cups' I get output:

● cups.service - CUPS Scheduler
 Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/cups.service; enabled; vendor preset: >
 Active: active (running) since Sat 2023-10-14 13:10:48 CEST; 35min ago
TriggeredBy: ● cups.path
         ● cups.socket
   Docs: man:cupsd(8)
   Main PID: 6480 (cupsd)
 Status: "Scheduler is running..."
  Tasks: 2 (limit: 18850)
 Memory: 14.6M
    CPU: 2.506s
 CGroup: /system.slice/cups.service
         └─6480 /usr/sbin/cupsd -l
Okt 14 13:10:48 Q-bit systemd[1]: Starting CUPS Scheduler...
Okt 14 13:10:48 Q-bit systemd[1]: Started CUPS Scheduler.

From the last output it seems that cups is active, but still I cannot print nor add any printer. Finally, the printer system config gives the error:

Sorry! the system printing service doesn't seem to be available

I attach here how it looks like when I go to system settings and then choose printers:

System Settings Printers

sotirov
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gluark
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  • Does this help?: What is CUPS server and how to share a printer – Luuk Oct 14 '23 at 12:50
  • Thank you Luuk for the helpful reply, it helped me to solve the problem! Namely when I ran 'system-config-printer' in the terminal, a window opens that did not have as title 'Printers - localhost' but instead some 'servername'! I used grep to search for this 'servername' and it seemed I added a client print server couple of years ago in the file '/etc/cups/client.conf' (There was a line ServerName 'servername'). I now removed that line such that the file is '/etc/cups/client.conf' completely empty. After that everything works again and I can use cups as usual! – gluark Oct 15 '23 at 15:44

1 Answers1

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After searching for almost two days I finally found the culprit in the file: /etc/cups/client.conf. This is the client configuration file for cups. In my case, the file was not empty but had a single line with the following:

ServerName 'servername'

After removing this line and making the file empty, everything works again and I add and see printers using the printer system settings (or using system-config-printer in terminal).

sotirov
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gluark
  • 1