How do I reset print system from terminal

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Level 1

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How do I reset print system from terminal

I was having trouble seeing my desktop's shared printer from my laptop, so I ran the following in the terminal:

cupsctl BrowseProtocols='"cups dnssd"'

Now any app that so much as thinks about printing crashes, including the system preferences. I am totally hosed here. How can I undo this? I can't get to any printer dialog to "reset the print system"

MB Pro3,1, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Dec 21, 2009 10:04 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

PAHU

Level 6

16,743 points

Dec 21, 2009 10:44 PM in response to Ben Harris

AFAIK, there is no Terminal command to reset the printing system. This question was asked a while ago for Leopard and this was the answer then - don't know if this has changed for SL. The CUPS man pages would suggest it hasn't...

But there is now the ability to reset the cups daemon configuration file via the CUPS web page. Using your browser, open the CUPS Admin page

http://127.0.0.1:631/admin

Here you will see the button 'Edit Configuration File'. Click this and you will see the cupsd.conf entries. Looking through this file shows that network shared printers are browsed using "BrowseLocalProtocols CUPS dnssd", the same as you tried to enter with the other command which could be only for 10.5?

Anyway, here you will also see the button 'Use Default Configuration File'. Click this and then click Save Changes. This will prompt for your admin username and password. Enter these and OK. Hopefully this gets you back the ability to access Print & Fax and to print again.

Pahu

Message was edited by: PAHU

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Answer 2

PAHU

Level 6

16,743 points

Dec 21, 2009 11:13 PM in response to K T

K T wrote:
In System Preferences/Print & Fax, if you right-click in the left 'Printers' window, a reset dialog should pop up....did you try this?

He said that he cannot open Print & Fax...

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Answer 3

kisuke3

Level 3

914 points

Dec 22, 2009 6:35 AM in response to Ben Harris

I am glad I can be of help. Please help us close this post as this has been resolved.

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Answer 4

K T

Level 7

23,895 points

Dec 21, 2009 11:03 PM in response to Ben Harris

In System Preferences/Print & Fax, if you right-click in the left 'Printers' window, a reset dialog should pop up....did you try this?

As well, did you try simply restarting the computer?

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Answer 5

Ben Harris Author

Level 1

24 points

Dec 22, 2009 5:22 AM in response to PAHU

Yup, as soon as I click Print and Fax , system prefs crashes.

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Answer 6

Ben Harris Author

Level 1

24 points

Dec 22, 2009 5:23 AM in response to PAHU

Thanks so much for your reply. Tried the http://127.0.0.1:631/admin link but the page will not load. I just get the spinning wheel in the Safari tab.

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Answer 7

Ben Harris Author

Level 1

24 points

Dec 22, 2009 5:24 AM in response to K T

Yes, I have restarted several times.

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Answer 8

kisuke3

Level 3

914 points

Dec 22, 2009 5:26 AM in response to Ben Harris

sudo cp /etc/cups/cupsd.conf /etc/cups/cupsd.conf.old
sudo cp /etc/cups/cupsd.conf.default /etc/cups/cupsd.conf

try the above commands.

Message was edited by: kisuke3

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Answer 9

Ben Harris Author

Level 1

24 points

Dec 22, 2009 6:16 AM in response to kisuke3

Back to normal!

THANK YOU!!!!!

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