Remove 'printer added' notifications from GNOME 3

Question

I've just upgraded to Ubuntu 17.04, using the GNOME desktop. Suddenly, I've started seeing 'printer added' notifications as OSD popups - approximately every 2 minutes! It's really distracting.

Anyone have any idea how I can either stop them at source, or at the very least filter them out from the OSD notifications?

This is a problem for me as well in Ubuntu 17.10. I've reported a bug here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1725955 — Gustav, Oct 22 '17 at 10:10
Never had the problem until 20.04, which is addressed by @jimsmith solution. — Déjà vu, Jul 13 '21 at 04:27
I have this problem in Ubuntu 20. It's annoying when I'm trying to use the computer as a slideshow server. — Sridhar Sarnobat, Jan 24 '22 at 19:21

score 54 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 24 '18 at 20:04

The problem that you're identifying appears identical to my case, which is, that upon OS restart, the system goes through an auto-discovery/auto-install process, and then politely notifies the user via a notification window (the OSD, or on-screen display). Yet then--periodically--this process seems to repeat itself for some as yet unknown reason.

Seems to me that somewhere in the new 17.04 driverless printer driver discovery logic, something is broken. The best I can tell is that the colord daemon is failing on a missing ICC file for the printer in question, which causes CUPS to want to "reinstall" the printer driver, and hence the repeating "printer installed" OSD message. Perhaps as a clue, when installing a "non-driverless" printer driver, the corresponding ICC is installed correctly.

In my own case, I've solved the problem by preventing CUPS from initiating this auto-everything process entirely. In this way, I install my printer(s) once, and never see a "printer added" OSD messages again.

The solution:

Edit /etc/cups/cups-browsed.conf, changing the BrowseRemoteProtocols CUPS dnssd line to BrowseRemoteProtocols none
Restart CUPS from Terminal service cups restart

Note that this assumes your printer(s) are on a LAN and not directly connected to your machine. If your printer is local (physically attached), you may want to edit BrowseProtocols instead (untested).

A restart of the CUPS service or machine reboot should resolve the "printer added" issue. Note that you'll need to manually add your printer(s), as the auto-discovery feature has now been disabled.

CUPS Reference: https://www.systutorials.com/docs/linux/man/5-cups-browsed.conf/

Rich

that sounds pretty plausible. My printer is indeed on the network. I'm not in the office today, but I'll try your suggestion next time I am. Thanks! — Ian Dickinson, Jun 02 '17 at 12:47
So that does definitely stop the OSD notifications, thanks @richbl. I do wonder if we should be reporting the root problem to a bug list somewhere, but I'm not actually sure where that somewhere should be! — Ian Dickinson, Jun 09 '17 at 09:03
For me the configuration file was /etc/cups/cups-browsed.conf — gitaarik, Jul 28 '17 at 15:49
I do not care if the underlying process repeats. I just want to avoid seeing the OSD messages. Can those be disabled? — Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen, Nov 02 '17 at 10:25
Does not work in 17.10. I still get the notifications, and printer gets added, as a duplicate to a previously installed printer. — Chad Wright, Nov 06 '17 at 17:29
This stops remote printers from being installed. I just want the notification to stop. — Philip Rego, Nov 01 '20 at 22:45

score 25 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 21 '21 at 16:01

25

Follow these steps:

Go to Settings
Click Notifications on the Sidebar
Click Printers under Applications
Turn Off the Notification Toggle

answered Jul 21 '21 at 16:01

Wangwe

351

1

This comment is God's work :)! – Animesh Karnewar May 04 '22 at 11:31
This makes me happy! @AnimeshKarnewar – Wangwe May 15 '22 at 14:49
I think this is a feature of later versions of Ubuntu, which does not require to edit the configuration file manually. Great! – berkus May 22 '22 at 06:58
Not all heroes wear capes. Thank you. – Cerin Apr 28 '23 at 14:59
Here is the gsettings command that does the above: gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.notifications.application:/org/gnome/desktop/notifications/application/gnome-printers-panel/ enable false – Martin Pecka Oct 04 '23 at 08:35

score 22 · Answer 3 · edited Nov 02 '20 at 12:49

22

So I thought I had found a solution (via FedoraForums actually):

# Finding the schemas of interest:
$ gsettings list-schemas | grep -i notif
Listing the values to target:
$ gsettings list-recursively org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.print-notifications
Changing the value:
$ gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.print-notifications active false

Source http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=297053

Unfortunately, despite a brief pause, I'm still getting OSD notifications.

edited Nov 02 '20 at 12:49

Philip Rego

452

answered Jun 01 '17 at 15:52

Ian Dickinson

1,444

I can confirm that this seems to work in 16.04 LTS. Thanks – chris LB Jul 05 '17 at 11:26
3

works like a charm on 17.10 – R13e Jan 11 '18 at 08:05
2

Seems to do the trick on Debian 9. Probably a Gnome issue. – kabanus Apr 12 '18 at 07:08
8

I like this answer because it demonstrates how to find the setting that needs to be changed, rather than just giving the fix. Plus you change the notification setting rather than turning off printer auto-detection altogether. – metasequoia Aug 15 '18 at 12:51
3

It doesn't help my Ubuntu 18.04 either. – Samuel Li Feb 26 '19 at 22:42
4

It doesn't work on 20.04, for me at least. – psiphi75 Jul 22 '20 at 23:08

score 10 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 13 '20 at 23:14

10

You need to stop dns-sd from constantly scanning in cups configuration:

Ubuntu 20.04:

edit /etc/cups/cups-browsed.conf and

change:

BrowseRemoteProtocols dnssd cups

to:

BrowseRemoteProtocols cups

Restart:

sudo systemctl restart cups

answered Oct 13 '20 at 23:14

jim smith

750

running ubuntu 20 - will give this a shot! – fIwJlxSzApHEZIl Jun 22 '21 at 19:06
Work in 20.04.. – Déjà vu Jul 13 '21 at 04:29
I think this is working (Ubuntu 20 for me too). – Sridhar Sarnobat Jan 25 '22 at 03:26
pkill gjs to get rid of the current notifications so I can enjoy my video playlist on my kiosk mode VLC monitor. – Sridhar Sarnobat Apr 30 '22 at 19:33

score 0 · Answer 5 · edited May 16 '20 at 15:31

0

I had the same problem with regular annoying printer added notifications. In my case, the root cause appeared to be the same as identified by richbl; missing colour profiles. I installed the missing colour profiles and the problem went away:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install icc-profiles
sudo systemctl restart cups

edited May 16 '20 at 15:31

boffbowsh

3

answered Jan 20 '20 at 10:13

Fred

91

1

Didn't work for me on Ubuntu 20.04 - I just got another random "Printer added" notification. – dw1 Sep 20 '20 at 07:01

Remove 'printer added' notifications from GNOME 3

5 Answers5

Listing the values to target:

Changing the value:

Linked

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