Printing service not available

Question

Sorry if this question looks familiar: I tried solutions proposed by google searches but they either are not working or are too technical for me.

I messed with cups a few days ago, I don't recall exactly how and why but I ended up deleting some cups files.

I have un-installed and re-installed cups several time, through the software center and using the terminal and I also reinstalled cups-daemon but nothing changes.

Now, my local printer won't work. I get the message "printing service not available. Start service on this computer or connect to another server". The "start service" button is "greyd out"

I tried to restart the service through the terminal with

sudo service cups restart

to which the shell replies:

cups stop/waiting

and then nothing happens, as if the shell was "waiting" for something the happen. I have to do ctrl-c to get the prompt back.

I tried the troubleshoot instructions in the help menu and it says that "The CUPS print spooler does not seem to be running. To correct this, choose "System->Administration->Services from the main menu and look for the "cups" service"

I do not know where is this "System->Administration->Services" is in Ubuntu 14.04 lts

I also tried:

sudo /etc/init.d/cups start

which yielded

cupsd: Child exited with status 1

Solution 1

I found a solution: I found a virgin content of cupsd.conf on a forum. So I created a new cupsd.conf file by doing:

gksudo gedit /etc/cups/cupsd.conf

and copied the following cupsd.conf virgin content below

#
#
# Sample configuration file for the CUPS scheduler. See "man cupsd.conf" for a
# complete description of this file.
#

# Log general information in error_log - change "warn" to "debug"
# for troubleshooting...
LogLevel warn

# Deactivate CUPS' internal logrotating, as we provide a better one, especially
# LogLevel debug2 gets usable now
MaxLogSize 0

# Administrator user group...
SystemGroup lpadmin

# Only listen for connections from the local machine.
Listen localhost:631
Listen /var/run/cups/cups.sock

# Show shared printers on the local network.
Browsing Off
BrowseOrder allow,deny
BrowseAllow all
BrowseLocalProtocols CUPS dnssd
BrowseAddress @LOCAL

# Default authentication type, when authentication is required...
DefaultAuthType Basic

# Restrict access to the server...
<Location />
  Order allow,deny
</Location>

# Restrict access to the admin pages...
<Location /admin>
  Order allow,deny
</Location>

# Restrict access to configuration files...
<Location /admin/conf>
  AuthType Default
  Require user @SYSTEM
  Order allow,deny
</Location>

# Set the default printer/job policies...
<Policy default>
  # Job-related operations must be done by the owner or an administrator...
  <Limit Send-Document Send-URI Hold-Job Release-Job Restart-Job Purge-Jobs Set-Job-Attributes Create-Job-Subscription Renew-Subscription Cancel-Subscription Get-Notifications Reprocess-Job Cancel-Current-Job Suspend-Current-Job Resume-Job CUPS-Move-Job CUPS-Get-Document>
    Require user @OWNER @SYSTEM
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>

  # All administration operations require an administrator to authenticate...
  <Limit CUPS-Add-Modify-Printer CUPS-Delete-Printer CUPS-Add-Modify-Class CUPS-Delete-Class CUPS-Set-Default CUPS-Get-Devices>
    AuthType Default
    Require user @SYSTEM
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>

  # All printer operations require a printer operator to authenticate...
  <Limit Pause-Printer Resume-Printer Enable-Printer Disable-Printer Pause-Printer-After-Current-Job Hold-New-Jobs Release-Held-New-Jobs Deactivate-Printer Activate-Printer Restart-Printer Shutdown-Printer Startup-Printer Promote-Job Schedule-Job-After CUPS-Accept-Jobs CUPS-Reject-Jobs>
    AuthType Default
    Require user @SYSTEM
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>

  # Only the owner or an administrator can cancel or authenticate a job...
  <Limit Cancel-Job CUPS-Authenticate-Job>
    Require user @OWNER @SYSTEM
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>

  <Limit All>
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>
</Policy>

# Set the authenticated printer/job policies...
<Policy authenticated>
  # Job-related operations must be done by the owner or an administrator...
  <Limit Create-Job Print-Job Print-URI>
    AuthType Default
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>

  <Limit Send-Document Send-URI Hold-Job Release-Job Restart-Job Purge-Jobs Set-Job-Attributes Create-Job-Subscription Renew-Subscription Cancel-Subscription Get-Notifications Reprocess-Job Cancel-Current-Job Suspend-Current-Job Resume-Job CUPS-Move-Job CUPS-Get-Document>
    AuthType Default
    Require user @OWNER @SYSTEM
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>

  # All administration operations require an administrator to authenticate...
  <Limit CUPS-Add-Modify-Printer CUPS-Delete-Printer CUPS-Add-Modify-Class CUPS-Delete-Class CUPS-Set-Default>
    AuthType Default
    Require user @SYSTEM
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>

  # All printer operations require a printer operator to authenticate...
  <Limit Pause-Printer Resume-Printer Enable-Printer Disable-Printer Pause-Printer-After-Current-Job Hold-New-Jobs Release-Held-New-Jobs Deactivate-Printer Activate-Printer Restart-Printer Shutdown-Printer Startup-Printer Promote-Job Schedule-Job-After CUPS-Accept-Jobs CUPS-Reject-Jobs>
    AuthType Default
    Require user @SYSTEM
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>

  # Only the owner or an administrator can cancel or authenticate a job...
  <Limit Cancel-Job CUPS-Authenticate-Job>
    AuthType Default
    Require user @OWNER @SYSTEM
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>

  <Limit All>
    Order deny,allow
  </Limit>
</Policy>

#
#

I saved it and then restarted the service with

sudo service cups restart

and that did the trick.

Solution 2

I had a similar problem (lubuntu 16.04) with 'printing services being unavailable'. This condition prevented the system from listing the local USB printer for selection. This was overcome installing CUPS:

sudo apt-get install cups

Next bounce the service:

sudo /etc/init.d/cups restart

Finally, restart the machine.

I did not need to install CUPS on my instance of Ubuntu 16.04.

Comments

[Elder Geek]

Have you tried restoring the files you deleted from the trash or your backup?

[frepie]

no but these files were in the cups folder so I assumed that they had been re-written with the re-install.

[Elder Geek]

That would have been the logical first approach prior to re-installation since you knew you deleted them. Did you try purging cups entirely prior to re-installing?

[frepie]

The trash folder doesn't contain the missing files. I guess they were deleted and not "moved to trash". But nonetheless, my impression is that these files would be created with the new install. I think I did purge cups prior to re-installing but I will try it again.

[Elder Geek]

Good idea. A full purge followed by re-install should do the trick.

[frepie]

I did sudo apt-get purge cups then deleted (as sudo) all of the files in /etc/cups, reinstalled cups with sudo apt-get install cups and finally restarted the computer. Nothing changed.

[steeldriver]

Have you looked in the cups log(s) in /var/log/cups and/or the system logs /var/log/dmesg and /var/log/syslog to see if they contain any clues as to why the service is failing to start?

[frepie]

dmesg: [ 12.935858] init: cups main process (474) terminated with status 1 [ 12.935885] init: cups main process ended, respawning [ 12.969823] init: avahi-cups-reload main process (479) terminated with status 1

[frepie]

There is no /etc/cups/cupsd.conf folder, despite that I installed cups several time

[user31301]

+1 thanks a million for the default cupsd.conf! I replaced my blank copy and it restored all original printer settings. Have no idea how the cupsd.conf got its contents wiped out! Was it the recent CUPS update, I wonder?