On Monday 20 September 2004 01:18 am, M. Halegua wrote:
I've been going over a problem and haven't been able to resolve it.
I think I've narrowed the problem down to Samba, but I could use some advice on this.
A few weeks ago I installed a print and fax server for a client. I used an old PII system with 64 MB RAM, SUSE Pro 9.1, configured to use Samba and HylaFAX. There are 8 client workstations running Window 98 SE (most of the systems are PII and PIII, so Win98 is the best solution for now).
After getting the kinks out it worked perfectly for about 1.5 weeks. Then, one of the people used a different system and sent a print job from a DOS app through a captured printer port. The printer driver was for a Brother HL-1440 laser, but the job was going to a HP LaserJet 5Si (the printer connected to the print/fax server).
It spewed garbage until one of the users finally went to the printer and cancelled the job. Since then most of the users can't print from either Windows or DOS apps to the 5Si. And sometimes some of them can, but they lose the capability later. Sometimes they get an error message "invalid access code" or a system error.
The reason I think it's Samba is, none of the systems see the printer in network neighborhood. They DO see the system, a couple of folders I've made available for admin and testing purposes, and the pdf printer Samba has, but no longer see the 5Si, which they should see as hp_laserjet5si.
I've checked to see, through ldd, the proper linking of Samba to the required printing and CUPS libs. They're there. The printer works properly from the server itself from the command line and from within scripts (the client wanted the faxes to print automatically upon receipt, and they continue to print out properly).
I looked in /var/spool/samba and I saw a number of files, with the usernames of the people who submitted the jobs, and the group users. But all the files were 0 bytes. When I tried to print one from the command line, it gave a stdin nothing found message (approximate message, I forget the word for word).
If it was one system, I'd guess a windows problem. But the browse and 0 byte for printer jobs is .... unusual. I've never seen Samba do this before.
I've reset the server (not necessary, I know, but just in case) and manually restarted the Samba (smbd, nmbd) daemons, the windows systems still don't see the printer.
To add to the issue, a file server set up a couple of years ago with SUSE 7.3 Pro is at Samba 2.2. Thinking this may be a conflict between Samba versions on the same network, I shutdown the file server, shutdown and restarted the print/fax server, and restarted the windows workstations. This didn't help.
As a last try, thinking the print/fax server itself may have some problem, and to eliminate it as a variable, I set up a different system and set it up as the first print/fax server and the same thing happened.
I'm totally stumped on this.
I just had a rather perplexing problem with one machine printing which may give you something to think about. The machine would not print. I ran and reran the cups installation and each time the daemon would die. During the setup it would detect the correct printer but would not print at all. I kept getting an error message telling me some spool file was to long. I ran across a thread on SLE with the subject Suicidal cups daemon. in it Johannes Meixner gives a 'brutal method' to do a complete reinstallation of cups.. I did it and it succeeded in getting cups to working again. The steps are simple: -stop cupsd -uninstall the cups packages (I used yast) -remove the contents of /etc/cups/* (but not /etc/cups/) -remove the /var/spool/cups/ and /var/log/cups/ directories -make sure that permissions, group and owner of /etc/cups/ is drwxrwxr-x lp lp -re-install the cups packages -start cupsd That solved my two days of frustration. Dont know what was wrong but it sure fixed the problem for me. Maybe it can help you by giving you a fresh start. Richard -- Old age ain't for Sissies!