When smbspool, the
smbclient utility CUPS uses,
fails to connect properly it emits error messages
that are humorous but not very helpful. One such message is Unable
to connect to SAMBA host: Success. Another sign of connection failures
is when documents seem to get stuck on the queue when printing to
Windows printers.
View the most recent entries in the CUPS log with the following command:
/usr/bin/tail /var/log/cups/error_log
If you see a message similar to cli_connect() failed... then
smbspool could not find the Windows PC you are
trying to connect to.
Check the spelling of the Windows PC's host name. Check that the
Windows PC is turned on and that its network connection is functioning
properly. Make sure you can connect to it using
smbclient as shown in Section 3.1, “Connecting To Windows”.
If you see a message similar to SMB tree connect failed: ERRSRV
- ERRinvnetname then smbclient connected
to the Windows PC
but could not connect to the printer you requested. Check the spelling
of the shared printer using smbclient as shown in
Section 3.1, “Connecting To Windows”.
Other failures include being unable to print to a local printer and
having your print jobs disappear from the queue without being printed.
You may also see vague error messages such as Child process 2384
exited with status 32.
Increase CUPS' logging level to “debug” to see more messages about what happened before the print job failed.
Open the main CUPS configuration file /etc/cups/cupsd.conf in
a text editor.
Change the line that reads “LogLevel warn” to “LogLevel debug”.
Save the configuration file and exit the text editor.
Restart the CUPS server with the command:
/etc/init.d/cupsys restart
You can follow the CUPS log with the following command:
/usr/bin/tail -f /var/log/cups/error_log
You should see a line that reads Scheduler shutting down due to
SIGTERM. This indicates that the CUPS server was stopped successfully.
Send your print job again and watch for useful debug messages that
appear. One example of a useful debug message is GNU Ghostscript
7.05: Can't start ijs server 'hpijs'. In this case the solution
is to install the “hpijs” package.
If you cannot determine the cause of the failure, do an Internet search for key terms in error messages you see; it is likely that someone has solved your problem before. You may also try upgrading the packages listed in Section 2.2, “Required Packages” to their latest versions.