CUPS won't allow printing in a Windows network

Question

Level 1

25 points

CUPS won't allow printing in a Windows network

I just spent five days trying to get printing working in my OSX 10.9.2 (iMac). Here's the thing: the printing network is a Windows smb network. Everything works fine on my MacBook OSX 10.9.2. I can manually install the smb://xxxx/yy printer and it works just fine there. So what's wrong with my iMac? I have no idea, but this is what happened. First I tried installing through Printers & Scanners / Advanced. And it worked fine on OSX 10.9. I used guest/guest credentials for the Windows network printer when asked.

But after upgrading to 10.9.2 it stopped working. The queue window says Ready to print and refresh or Resume does nothing. In the error log it says "ERROR: error in CUPS Filter - : Broken pipe". And also there are possibly problems with authentication.

Then I tried installing the printer through the CUPS web interface. Had weird problems with it, as it's very hard to control users and authentication. At one point I thought I had cracked it, I was able to print with my Windows network credentials. But the next print did not work anymore. I had to uninstall the printer and install again to get just one print. After trying to set users right with different sudo commands I am now at point where I can't even get one print through.

What can I try? I have done Reset many times from Printers & Scanners, no difference. What does the broken pipe mean? And how to set the printing CUPS user to what I want (it needs to be different than my OSX user or "root")?

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2)

Posted on Mar 28, 2014 2:17 AM

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Answer 1

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Mar 28, 2014 7:33 AM in response to jiokay

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.

Select

/var/log ▹ cups ▹ error_log

from the hierarchical list on the left side of the Console window. If you don't see that list, select

View ▹ Show Log List

from the menu bar. Then select the messages from the time of the last failed printing attempt. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message (command-V).

If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don’t post many repetitions of the same message.

When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough.

Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.

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Answer 2

jiokay Author

Level 1

25 points

Mar 31, 2014 12:09 AM in response to Linc Davis

I'll put two intact blocks (separated by two dots) of the error log here:

D [27/Mar/2014:17:51:54 +0200] [Client 19] POST / HTTP/1.1

D [27/Mar/2014:17:51:54 +0200] cupsdSetBusyState: newbusy="Active clients and dirty files", busy="Dirty files"

D [27/Mar/2014:17:51:54 +0200] [Client 19] No authentication data provided.

D [27/Mar/2014:17:51:54 +0200] [Client 19] 2.0 CUPS-Get-Printers 18

D [27/Mar/2014:17:51:54 +0200] CUPS-Get-Printers

D [27/Mar/2014:17:51:54 +0200] [Client 19] Returning IPP successful-ok for CUPS-Get-Printers (no URI) from localhost

D [27/Mar/2014:17:51:54 +0200] [Client 19] Content-Length: 1673

D [27/Mar/2014:17:51:54 +0200] [Client 19] cupsdWriteClient error=0, used=0, state=HTTP_STATE_POST_SEND, data_encoding=HTTP_ENCODING_LENGTH, data_remaining=1673, response=0x7f8828c0b680(IPP_IDLE), pipe_pid=0, file=-1

D [27/Mar/2014:17:51:54 +0200] [Client 19] Writing IPP response, ipp_state=DATA, old wused=0, new wused=0

D [27/Mar/2014:17:51:54 +0200] [Client 19] bytes=0, http_state=0, data_remaining=0

D [27/Mar/2014:17:51:54 +0200] [Client 19] Waiting for request.

D [27/Mar/2014:17:51:54 +0200] cupsdSetBusyState: newbusy="Dirty files", busy="Active clients and dirty files"

D [27/Mar/2014:17:52:02 +0200] [Client 16] HTTP_STATE_WAITING Closing on EOF

D [27/Mar/2014:17:52:02 +0200] [Client 16] Closing connection.

D [27/Mar/2014:17:52:02 +0200] cupsdSetBusyState: newbusy="Dirty files", busy="Dirty files"

I [27/Mar/2014:17:52:24 +0200] Saving printers.conf...

D [27/Mar/2014:17:52:24 +0200] cupsdSetBusyState: newbusy="Not busy", busy="Dirty files"

D [27/Mar/2014:17:53:13 +0200] [Client 18] HTTP_STATE_WAITING Closing on EOF

D [27/Mar/2014:17:53:13 +0200] [Client 18] Closing connection.

..

D [27/Mar/2014:17:54:32 +0200] [Client 17] Accepted from localhost (Domain Image Capture E[248])

D [27/Mar/2014:17:54:32 +0200] [Client 17] Waiting for request.

D [27/Mar/2014:17:54:32 +0200] [Client 17] POST / HTTP/1.1

D [27/Mar/2014:17:54:32 +0200] cupsdSetBusyState: newbusy="Active clients", busy="Not busy"

D [27/Mar/2014:17:54:32 +0200] [Client 17] No authentication data provided.

D [27/Mar/2014:17:54:32 +0200] [Client 17] 2.0 CUPS-Get-Printers 2

D [27/Mar/2014:17:54:32 +0200] CUPS-Get-Printers

D [27/Mar/2014:17:54:32 +0200] [Client 17] Returning IPP successful-ok for CUPS-Get-Printers (no URI) from localhost

D [27/Mar/2014:17:54:32 +0200] [Client 17] Content-Length: 1673

D [27/Mar/2014:17:54:32 +0200] [Client 17] cupsdWriteClient error=0, used=0, state=HTTP_STATE_POST_SEND, data_encoding=HTTP_ENCODING_LENGTH, data_remaining=1673, response=0x7f8828e488f0(IPP_IDLE), pipe_pid=0, file=-1

D [27/Mar/2014:17:54:32 +0200] [Client 17] Writing IPP response, ipp_state=DATA, old wused=0, new wused=0

D [27/Mar/2014:17:54:32 +0200] [Client 17] bytes=0, http_state=0, data_remaining=0

D [27/Mar/2014:17:54:32 +0200] [Client 17] Waiting for request.

D [27/Mar/2014:17:54:32 +0200] cupsdSetBusyState: newbusy="Not busy", busy="Active clients"

D [27/Mar/2014:17:54:32 +0200] [Client 17] HTTP_STATE_WAITING Closing on EOF

D [27/Mar/2014:17:54:32 +0200] [Client 17] Closing connection.

D [27/Mar/2014:17:54:32 +0200] cupsdSetBusyState: newbusy="Not busy", busy="Not busy"

E [27/Mar/2014:18:07:52 +0200] [Job 52] Connection refused

E [27/Mar/2014:18:07:53 +0200] [Job 52] ERROR: error in CUPS Filter - : Broken pipe

E [27/Mar/2014:18:07:57 +0200] [Job 52] Connection refused

E [27/Mar/2014:18:07:57 +0200] [Job 52] ERROR: error in CUPS Filter - : Broken pipe

E [27/Mar/2014:18:10:31 +0200] EPSON_Perfection_V700_V750: Directory "/Library/Image Capture/Devices/EPSON Scanner.app/Contents/Resources" has insecure permissions (040775/uid=0/gid=80).

E [27/Mar/2014:18:11:29 +0200] [Job 1] Connection refused

E [27/Mar/2014:18:11:29 +0200] [Job 1] ERROR: error in CUPS Filter - : Broken pipe

E [27/Mar/2014:18:11:35 +0200] [Job 1] Connection refused

E [27/Mar/2014:18:11:35 +0200] [Job 1] ERROR: error in CUPS Filter - : Broken pipe

E [27/Mar/2014:18:13:37 +0200] [Job 1] Connection refused

E [27/Mar/2014:18:13:38 +0200] [Job 1] ERROR: error in CUPS Filter - : Broken pipe

E [27/Mar/2014:18:18:41 +0200] [Job 1] Stopping unresponsive job.

E [28/Mar/2014:10:59:54 +0200] [Client 16] pam_authenticate() returned 13 (unknown user)

Note that the EPSON_Perfection_V700_V750 is a local USB device and there are no problems with that. The problematic printers are Ricoh network printers.

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Answer 3

jiokay Author

Level 1

25 points

Apr 16, 2014 3:30 AM in response to jiokay

Any help for this please? I can now confirm that the exact same problem occurred on another Mac computer in our organization. I was again able to add a new "Windows printer via spoolss" printer in CUPS, but I was able to print through that new printer only once. Not possible to print again.

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Answer 4

jiokay Author

Level 1

25 points

May 7, 2014 9:56 AM in response to jiokay

I have to say this problem has sucked more than any other problem. But, I think I found a workaround. A very, very bad workaround.

If I install the printer with the CUPS web interface like this:

- Add Printer: Windows printer via spoolss

- Connection: smb://USER:PASSWORD@smbserver/PRINTERNAME

- manually select the printer and model

Then I can actually make more prints than just one. So what's the problem? Did you notice the USER and PASSWORD up there? That's the Windows network username and password published right there. It's easily found unencrypted if you know where to look. Also I have to reinstall the printers if I change my password.

Any help?

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Answer 5

greg sahli

Level 7

25,508 points

May 7, 2014 10:39 AM in response to jiokay

Please post this issue on Apple Feedback. They don't often read these user-to-user forum posts.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

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Answer 6

jiokay Author

Level 1

25 points

May 8, 2014 3:15 AM in response to greg sahli

Found a solution (and sent feedback to Apple).

Go to Keychain Access and to the search (upper right corner) start writing your SMB server name. Delete all instances of the server. Forget about CUPS and install printer from Printers & Scanners (OS X 10.9.2.) -> plus button -> Advanced (you have to unhide that button by right mouse at the top of window) -> "Windows printer via spoolss", URL: smb://smbserver/printer, Name: anyname, Use: Select Software (you have to manually download and install the correct driver first).

Now you should be able to print. If not, try adding your SMB credentials at the Keychain Access window (plus button).

It was very confusing how the authentication window appeared when trying to print, and you could even enter correct credentials and it worked, but then it wouldn't work again for the second print (unless uninstalling and installing the printer again). But once you find the related entries in Keychain Access, you get much further.

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Answer 7

greg sahli

Level 7

25,508 points

May 8, 2014 1:02 PM in response to jiokay

Thanks for the workaround/info. Hope it helps others.

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