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OS: Ubuntu 13
Printer: HP Deskjet 2540

Problem: Printer worked initially. Suddenly stopped working. Printer cue just says "pending" and printing never happens.

How do I get it to go from "pending" to "printing"?

Volker Siegel
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Donnie Love
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  • FWIW, I got this problem under vanilla Debian, printer status just suddenly started showed "Pending - Printer error", and it was not possible to get any other detailed print status. Then I read this and went into Printer Settings and sure enough the printer Enabled checkbox was not enabled... clicking it printed the document... great system.... :) – BjornW Feb 05 '18 at 17:15

5 Answers5

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I found the problem. Under Settings>Printers>Policies "Enabled" was not selected. Why is this even an option?? Of all the features that used to make Ubuntu a good operating system have been stripped away, this one remains?? Unreal.

Donnie Love
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    That did the trick. I'm with you, it's a ridiculous option and the point is that I didn't do anything to have it disabled... – cabreracanal Sep 15 '15 at 18:37
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    +1. Doesn't make sense that this Enabled option is not visible in Printing Status tool window. – IsaacS Jan 03 '16 at 00:58
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    +1 This resolved my issue even though I had already printed something out 10 mins earlier. So don't be shy to check this setting as it might be your issue. – James Feb 21 '16 at 22:00
  • @cabreracanal This is such a strange bug.. The printer was working, and all of a sudden this bug kicks in.. What the...? Good thing it was this easy to fix.. But how did such a bug come into existence in the first place? – Fiksdal May 06 '16 at 10:32
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    Just wanted to note - to access this on Ubuntu 14.04: run system-config-printer; in the Printers dialog, select your printer, right-click, choose Properties; the Printer Properties dialog is started with the "Settings" tab on the left selected; the "Policies" tab is right below it - select "Policies" tab, and then can see the "Enabled" setting. – sdaau Jan 18 '18 at 19:23
  • Something is causing this, IMHO, CUPS should be able to control that "feature"... – Aleksandar Pavić Oct 16 '18 at 06:32
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    Thank you. I actually printed one document fine, then the second was stuck and the printer said 'Paused'. So something unchcked Enabled. – rjh Nov 12 '18 at 16:45
  • You saved ma a lot of time !!! Thanks. I had also printed some minutes before it stopped. I had a paper jam issue and maybe the printing was disabled because of that... – duduklein Nov 30 '18 at 08:33
  • Thanks, saved me. I sent 2 docs to the printer. The first one came out, the second got pending. With this solution I could repair it. Very strange. – Jabba Dec 10 '19 at 06:52
  • Nope, that's not it. Enabled. But, still pending. – user289334 May 12 '20 at 14:01
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    I believe the enabled checkbox gets unchecked if there are issues with the printer. It is not the root cause. But it might become an issue when the issues with the printer were temporary. – relet Nov 01 '22 at 09:49
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    In Ubuntu 20.04, this is slightly different. You have to go to Settings, then Additional Printer Settings. Right-click on your printer, then click the Enabled option. How stupid... thanks for the point in the right direction! – rayryeng May 27 '23 at 15:41
  • @rayryeng, under Ubuntu 22.04, when I do this, the job goes from "pending" to processing", then back to pending (and the printer is no longer enabled then). Any way to debug this instead of trying one trick after the other? – Thorsten Staerk Sep 05 '23 at 19:38
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    10 years later, with Ubuntu 22.04, the answer was different for me: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1484824/printer-jobs-in-pending-mode-but-not-printing and in the question I included log output. – Thorsten Staerk Sep 05 '23 at 21:06
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  • sudo system-config-printer

  • right click printer icon in Printers - localhost

    /properties
    /settings
    /policies

  • check "enabled"

  • close the system-config-printer tool

done.

Community
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rioguia
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    Nope, did all that. It's enabled fine, that's not the proble. Just, print q pending. Hintr: recently I cancelled a job which was printing voluminous unwanted stuff. Thereafter, "pending". Power cycle, add delete bla. Still "pending". I'll try again to remove thre printer and add it in again. – user289334 May 12 '20 at 14:04
  • This is absurd. Why would it be disabled by default, after adding? Also, I enable it, apply, and then it just disables itself again. – Josh M. Jan 04 '23 at 16:32
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Under Ubuntu 16.04 the same problem occurred, on my networked (wireless) HP 4635, in the same way: suddenly, without the user doing anything, and for no obvious reason. It was resolved in about the same way: click the Settings icon (gear), click System Settings, open Printers, right-click the printer, click "Enabled" in the printer's context menu to check-mark "Enabled". (If "Enabled" was already check-marked, this isn't your solution.)

ElHombre55
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Update to Donnie's answer:

For non-GUI CUPS user, you can adjust this setting in your CUPS web interface.

Administration => Manage Printers => Select your printer => Maintaince => Resume Printer.

It's really strange that, a single printing failure causes CUPS to prevent any further printing job. Bad design .

recolic
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The print jobs stay in pending state, when the printer is "disabled", as the other answers suggest. However I also noticed the checkbox gets re-enabled when the issues disappear.

In my case, the daemon cups-browsed got stuck, and restarting it using systemctl restart cups-browsed helped resolve the issue, and the print job resumed immediately.

relet
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