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View Full Version : kde print manager 'hangs' -- [fixed, but with a question]


bluesdog
07-07-2006, 01:40 PM
wtf is going on with kde print manager? :!:

On three different systems, all running etch/testing, with cups already installed and accessible via the cups web interface, when accessing kde control panel >peripherals >printers, the system would hang for an indeterminate, (looooong), time, attempting to launch the print manager. (initialising print manager).

This seemed to be caused by the URI to the print server being incorrectly listed as /var/run/cupsd Port:631 (or something similar. I worked on this quite late, and neglected to take note of the incorrect location..), rather than localhost:631

Manually editing /home/userlogin/.kde/share/config/kprinterrc fixed the setting for user, but the problem resurfaced when attempting to access the global administrator level settings.

Since I don't know where the global configuration file is located -- and Google didn't help me (!), simply killing kcontrol, then restarting it a few times, seemed to do the trick, by eventually allowing me to make the changes in the server config settings, (Print server > Configure server):

After a long wait, the informational box, 'initializing print manager' vanished, an error message appeared and once that was dismissed, I accessed the print server dialog, and changed the entry to default, so the system listened to *:631 == which allowed it to be satisfied when it found 'localhost:631', the port where CUPS was waiting to get noticed. Oddly, the change did not immediately take effect, and the system displayed another error message, but cancelling out of the administration level, and then re-entering it showed that the settings were now correct.

I had to do this for each machine.

REAL annoying, having to wait for kcontrol to give up and allow me to access the damn buttons!

So, if anyone knows where the global printer configuration file lives.... :?:

Would an alternative be to make a symlink in whatever location kcontrol thinks the cups server should be? (I never thought of trying that) :?

tom_servo
07-08-2006, 08:05 AM
If I understood correctly you are asking about the file that does the same job /home/userlogin/.kde/share/config/kprinterrc does, except for root (so the one that takes effect when you click the "administrator mode" button). If that is the case then the answer is the /root/.kde/share/config/kprinterrc file. On my system this file is almost empty, and the Control Center printers section works fine for me. I would expect it to work fine if you just deleted that file (but I would recommend renaming instead so if that makes things worse recovery is easy).

If instead you are referring to the settings for cups (things like the name of a printer, its URI, etc.) that stuff is in the /etc/cups/ directory (mostly the cupsd.conf and printers.conf files). I don't mess with those files much. My general rule for cups is to make it work well enough that I can either get the web interface or the KDE Control Center page to work, then configure the rest through one of those. Maybe it is just painful memories of configuring my own printcap file for lpr and lprng, but I am happy to let a good gui help me through setting up printing as much as possible. I have even taken that as far as configuring cups on one computer, then copying the /etc/cups directory to another so that I didn't have to do anything a second time.


Alain

bluesdog
07-08-2006, 02:43 PM
/root/.kde/share/config/kprinterrc does not seem to exist on my system.

Strangely, now that kprinter displays the correct information, the
/home/userlogin/.kde/share/config/kprinterrc file is also almost empty:[KPrinter Settings]
ApplicationOptions=
DialogReduced=false
PrintCommand=
Printer=printerWhich is certainly not what it looked like either before or after I manually edited it.
kprinter now works correctly for both user and admin, so this file now seems redundant, or irrelevant.

For my own use, I prefer the CUPS web interface, and normally set things up that way.
(Being a lazy non-programmer, I also prefer a good gui! But I do appreciate most of Linux is script-dependant.)

However, kprinter is the way most newbie/users would automatically use, since it can be invoked from kcontrol (Control Center)
I would expect most newbies, especially those from a windoze background, to just try to do all/any configuration via kcontrol.

I discovered this annoyance/bug/whatever while setting up a system for a newbie....
Since it was a fairly fresh install, I was dismayed to have kcontrol/kprinter just lock up like that.

I suppose my question is really more about the way kprinter handles things. Why does it not simply use the default path initially, instead of some weird /var/run/cupsd/whatever ?

tom_servo
07-09-2006, 03:57 AM
I suppose my question is really more about the way kprinter handles things. Why does it not simply use the default path initially, instead of some weird /var/run/cupsd/whatever ?

I don't know, but I don't think it should. I would suggest that you file a bug report with Debian at http://bugs.debian.org . I did a quick search there, and I think bug 370403 might be related, but I don't know enough about what you were seeing to know for sure.


Alain

tom_servo
07-25-2006, 08:41 AM
In case anyone is interested, here is some more info on this. In KDE 3.5.3 kde bug 124157 ( http://bugs.kde.org/124157 ) is fixed. This makes me think that just upgrading to KDE 3.5.3 would solve these KDE and cups not getting along problems. I cannot be sure that it will, since I never did see this problem myself.


Alain

bluesdog
07-25-2006, 01:38 PM
Unfortunately this Kdprint bug coincided with the recent, well reported CUPS bug...

I'm using KDE 3.5.3 on this box, but also don't have a printer on it, so I cannot test.

The 'virtual' printer seems ok

This printer issue is something that, imo, should never have happened. Since printing is rather basic, and trivially easy to test, it is very surprising both the Kprint and CUPS bugs made it to release

:?