"The Zen of Troubleshooting {Grasshopper}"

The error is the answer!

"BJ210 Printer 'BJ210' may not be connected"
Let's go look at each layer of a print connection:


A)  Devices:

How are you connecting your printer? 

1) If your printer is Parallel port connected:

 If the printer is capable of direct ASCII text printing, the following command as root should print a single page with the word Hello on it: 

$ echo -en "\rHello\r\f" >/dev/lp0
[If you have more than one local printer device check lp1 or lp2.]


2) via USB:

$ dmesg | tail -n 50

Do you see your printer?
Do you see other usb devices?
If the printer is capable of direct ASCII text printing, the following command as root should print a single page with the word Hello on it:

$ echo -en "\rHello\r\f" >/dev/usb/lp0
---although you might not always see it print if it's not ASCII---

$ cat /proc/bus/usb/devices

If this does not display any information, it will usually be for one of these reasons:


3) HOT Plug Issues:
Sometimes it may happen that the USB printer does not respond anymore, for instance, after unplugging it in the middle of a print job. In such a case, the following commands should be sufficient to restart the USB system:


$ rchotplug stop

$ rchotplug start

If you are not successful with these commands, terminate all processes that use /dev/usb/lp0. Use lsmod to check which USB modules are loaded (usb-uhci, usb-ohci, or uhci) and how they depend on each other. For instance, the following entry in the output of lsmod shows that the module usbcore is being used by modules printer and usb-uhci:

4) Multiple USB Devices:
 

If you have more than one USB printer connected to the system, there
is a special issue to consider: All connected devices are autodetected
by the USB subsystem with the first USB printer being addressed as
device /dev/usb/lp0 and the second one as /dev/usb/lp1.
Depending on the model, USB printers can be detected even when they
are powerless. Some have the built-in capability to be queried by the
system even when powered off. Therefore, to avoid that the system
confuses different printers, switch on all printers before booting and
try to leave them connected to power all the time.

B) Cups and Networking

Is the cupsd process running?

$ tail /var/log/cups/error_log
$ ps -ef |grep cup

Is the port open or is something else in the way?

$ netstat -anp |grep 631


And VERIFY that the POWER is ON on your PRINTER!


> Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:37:36 -0700
> From: holtzm@cox.net
> To: plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> Subject: printer problems
>
> As of today my old workhorse Canon BJ210 stopped printing with an error
> message "BJ210 Printer 'BJ210' may not be connected". It doesn't appear
> to be OS related as it happens in Ubuntu and Debian. Contradicting that
> assumption is the fact that when I try to delete the attempted print
> jobs from the lineup I get an error message "There was an error during
> the CUPS operation: 'client-error-not-possible'". This only happens in
> Ubuntu and not Debian. Deleting and reinstalling the printer eliminated
> this problem but didn't restore operation.
>
> Another oddity is that when I reboot the error message about the
> printer not being connected appears. This despite the printer being
> turned off prior to the reboot.
>
> In case anyone wonders, the printer powers up, the physical connections
> are tight, and the requisite noises are heard when turning the power on
> or off.
>
> Hopefully the printer isn't toast as this isn't a good time for me to
> have to buy a new one.
>
> --
> Bob Holtzman
> "If you think you're getting free lunch,
> check the price of the beer"
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