Canon printer issues, unable to access CUPS [SOLVED]

[ULTRA001]

Hi,
I'm new to Linux, and, the way it's going I feel this is going be a brief sojourn followed by a return to Windows

My current issue is this:

I bought a new Canon MG7550 (7520 in the US I think), and, after some frustration, got it working this Saturday gone. Yet, I come home from work today to report from my daughter that it no longer works. There is a huge cue of print jobs and PRINTERS reports 'Processing - Preparing for printing...'

I navigate to CUPS and the printer is not detected, even though it was Saturday...

Then, I start receiving the message 'Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at localhost:631'

I've spent a couple of hours looking on this forum and others, and have tried a few things to no avail. So, now, I guess I've spent upwards of 6 hours on installing a printer, which once worked, and now doesn't.

The firewall is OFF, and was actually ON when I got everything working on Saturday by the way, that's an obvious one

I am an electronic engineer (analogue style) and, while I don't mind a bit of fiddling on the weekend, I don't have the time or inclination to spend hours doing the simplest of things, just because I decided to, which I now feel is a bad decision, to give Linux a try.

If anyone can help please do, otherwise I'm down to PCWorld with my credit in the next couple of days.

[pdc_2]

Hi Ultra; sounds a very nice machine you have bought; it gets excellent reviews. Sorry to hear of your frustrations with getting it to work.

I am guessing you maybe have the gutenprint driver installed: that is the open source driver; if I want to open CUPS, I could click on this link http://localhost:631/printers/ and column 4 lists Make & Model so for the Canon MG7500 does it say gutenprint?

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Can I suggest we guide you on installing the printer drivers that Canon supplies for your machine?

You can get them from here http://support-asia.canon-asia.com/cont ... 26502.html and it was released 9th Sept 2014 and it comes down as cnijfilter2-5.00-1-deb.tar.gz and if you click to SAVE the file as the download starts please and by default it should end up in your Downloads folder

_________-

if you can open a terminal: on my cinnamon menu I would start bottom left at menu; and go up about 5 to the TVscreen-like icon; click to open

_________

we need to get you to paste some commands into the terminal; whereas many programmes use the control and v keys, the terminal uses 3: the shift and the control and the v keys: (or use the menu at the top of the terminal and use the mouse)

_________

if you copy the commands below; paste them one line at a time into the terminal; and hit the enter key after each paste please:

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cd Downloads

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tar -zxvf cnijfilter2-5.00-1-deb.tar.gz

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cd cnijfilter2-5.00-1-deb

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./install.sh

and that final command starts the install script; it will ask you for your sudo password so have that ready; it will both install the drivers and register the printer; if you click on CUPS after the install, http://localhost:631/printers/ then there should be a queue name at the left; and an entry in the 4th column (Make & Model) that should say something like Canon MG7500 series so if you note the queue name that matches that Canon MG7500 series entry ............

if the gutenprint does not work, might be best to delete its entry ?

[ULTRA001]

Hi,
thanks for your reply. I'm at work at the moment, on a different machine, so I can't try things till this evening.

On Saturday I successfully downloaded and installed the Canon drivers, and the printer was working. Printing text and photos successfully.

Yesterday it was no longer working, always 'preparing to print' and I can no longer access localhost:631, Firefox cannot access it. So I cannot access CUPS to try to diagnose the problem. Oddly, when I got home yesterday I could access CUPS, and saw that it no longer detected the printer, but, seconds later, Firefox reported the can't connect to the server at...problem.

Typing the IP reports the same thing, Firefox cannot access it.

A ping to 127.0.0.1 seems to work.

The firewall is off.

I have restarted CUPS from the terminal, used gedit to look at the config file, tried to reinstall CUPS, all the things which a person who is an engineer, but not one of computers, can think of and find out about by trawling through forums and using fault-finding logic.

Obviously, something has messed with the settings, maybe my daughter, maybe me, maybe the update which came Sunday...

But, it's now at the point where I've spent 800 odd quid on a nice new PC build, a couple of hundred quid on a printer and inks, and roughly 7 hours trying to get them to talk to each other, but, essentially, failed. It worked, and now it doesn't, and I have a blunt, impenetrable problem caused by seemingly nothing.

That kind of thing is a more of a threat to humanity than ISIS is ;-D

[ULTRA001]

By the way, it's not very encouraging that your wife and daughter can try to print a cottage pie recipe, or that an update can come along, and essentially cripple your system to such an extent it needs a reinstall...

[Rusty1]

an update can come along, and essentially cripple your system to such an extent it needs a reinstall...

What was updated and how? And what version Mint?

I would reboot the computer and try to connect to the Cups web interface, delete any pending print jobs, and reinstall the printer. If you are unable to connect to Cups in a browser, I would try reinstalling Cups via the Synaptic package manager.

Canon printers are not well supported in Linux, but you know that now - nonetheless a little perseverence and you might be ok.

Linux is , for the desktop user, pretty much a do it yourself affair. If you are not ready to get your hands dirty, then Windows is probably your best bet.

[ULTRA001]

Hi,
thanks for your reply. I'm stuck with a 200 quid brick at the moment!

The install is Mint 17.1 - and the update was a level 3 security update from Update Manager on Sunday. Bog standard I thought...

The printer was working, now it is not - for no apparent reason.

I've rebooted 20 times at least, reinstalled CUPS 5 times. Restarted CUPS by the terminal n times. You name it...

**I cannot connect to the CUPS web interface, this is my primary problem at the moment**

I have this problem when attempting to access the CUPS web interface: 'Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at localhost:631'

Attempting to navigate to the CUPS interface via the IP address 127.0.0.1:631 also fails.

A ping to 127.0.0.1 gives: 64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=0.034 ms

'openssl s_client -connect localhost:631'

in the terminal returns:

connect: Connection refused
connect:errno=111



So is it CUPS itself?

Thanks,
Andy

[pdc_2]

for many of us, google provides links to issues that surface with other users;

for the message

Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at localhost:631

I think a useful thread may well be post #4 here http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=150839

the advice was to copy the default file that is called conf.default to replace the file that is called cupsd.conf

......an explanation for one user was that there was a fault in cupsd.conf whereby it had no contents:

you could check it on your own system with the command

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gedit /etc/cups/cupsd.conf

.............. which uses the text editor called gedit to open the file with read-only powers; so you cannot save any changes you might make to the file, deliberately or accidently: to open it with read/write powers the command would be

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gksudo gedit /etc/cups/cupsd.conf

____________________

this thread here http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=51175 has the original reference from altair4 in post #4: I just mention it to substantiate what I would suggest you do: what I suggest you do sounds eminently reasonable but I sometimes add a disclaimer that it is your machine;

__________________-

so I would suggest you do

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

..........so that is copying the contents of the default file into the file that the system reads; which is cupsd.conf so it is starting things over again; when I check the contents of my two files, they are essentially identical: the default file just has more hash marks (#) signifying options that have not been exercised.

when you have done the above, one restarts CUPS with

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sudo /etc/init.d/cups restart

and I wonder then how you go on things such as http://localhost:631/printers/

[Rusty1]

I've rebooted 20 times at least, reinstalled CUPS 5 times. Restarted CUPS by the terminal n times. You name it...

Look in the System monitor (in the System Tools menus in Mate version) , click View in that menu bar, All Processes and see if Cups is in the list . You can also type:

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ps -A | grep cups

in a monitor. If the cupsd (cupd daemon is listed, then cups is running, if not then in a terminal type: sudo cupsd to start it.

I recall i similar probem after a Brother printer install script borked cups and I ended up removing some cups packages from the package manager and installing cups again, which fixed it. YMMV.

[ULTRA001]

Hi,
thanks for your detailed reply...

I did indeed check those very postings yesterday, before I resorted to my original post, and tried to replace with the default, and no luck.

I also used gedit to look at the config file, and it looked OK.

I will try again and see what I find this time.

I've been staring into a computer for hours and hours today, so I may have to leave it till later in the week. My eyes are burning.

Thanks,
Andy

[ULTRA001]

Hi

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

returns:

cp: cannot stat ‘/etc/cups/cupsd.conf.default’: No such file or directory

same as yesterday.


gedit /etc/cups/cupsd.conf

results in a permission denied

gksudo gedit /etc/cups/cupsd.conf

opens a config file which, to my untrained eyes, looks OK.

sudo /etc/init.d/cups restart

yesterday told me that CUPS was already running. I will try again in a bit.

Andy

[ULTRA001]

Nope, restart doesn't help.

Sorry I'm using many small posts, but the forum signs me out after a few minutes and I lose everything I've written.

[ULTRA001]

ps -A | grep cups

returns

1363 ? 00:00:03 cups-browsed
16740 ? 00:00:00 cupsd
16745 ? 00:00:00 cupsd
26580 ? 00:00:00 cupsd


in system monitor I cannot see CUPS.

[exploder]

I found some information here that might help.

http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/201 ... inux-mint/

Mint 17.1 is based on Ubuntu 14.04 so the instructions should work.

Edit: There is information in the comments that looks helpful too.

[ULTRA001]

Hi,
thanks for that. I'll have a look tomorrow if I can. I've been staring into the screen for 13+ hours now

Maybe it's simpler just to start from a fresh install? I want to try to get the Catalyst 14.x driver for my GPU too.

My concern is the possibility of a lot of work, and, right in the middle of the wife or kids doing something, it all goes wrong again. And, for that reason, I'm doggedly trying to fix the current problem, so I then know what it actually is. I started to read something on the Debian site yesterday, but, again, had to give up on it to save my eyesight.

Andy

[daveinuk]

Can I ask what you need CUPS for ? I've got an MG3550, connected to my desktop via USB, the other machines in the house have the Canon printer software installed on each machine and I can print wirelessly from any machine. All I had to do was use the WPS synch button on the printer and router and I was away, as for the browser side, might be worth disabling add-ons/ad' blockers possibly?

[altair4]

You might want to check the obvious things:

Run the following command:

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sudo cat /etc/cups/cupsd.conf

And look at the first few lines:

LogLevel warn
MaxLogSize 0
# Allow remote access
Port 631
Listen /var/run/cups/cups.sock
Browsing On
BrowseLocalProtocols dnssd
DefaultAuthType Basic
WebInterface Yes

I can reproduce both your symptoms ( firefox error and the openssl s_client -connect error ) simply by commenting out the "Port 631" line. This even through the cups service is running.

EDIT: By the by. You might want to restart the cups service this way in the future:

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sudo service cups restart

The cups service is no longer controlled by /etc/init.d. It's at /etc/init/cups.conf since it's an Upstart service now - until it's replaced by systemd of course.

EDIT2: For some reason I had assumed that this was a networked machine. If it's a stand alone machine the lines in cupsd.conf relating to port 631 would look like this:

# Only listen for connections from the local machine.
Listen localhost:631
Listen /var/run/cups/cups.sock

[ULTRA001]

Hi,
Thanks for your suggestions.

The Canon blurb says the MG7550 driver works via CUPS and, now CUPS doesn't work, I lost the ability to print. Maybe there is another way to get it to work, but the mystery still remains: Why did it arbitrarily fall over in the first place - went from working fine, to CUPS not working?

To my mind that means, somewhere in the system, there is a . or a , or a / waiting to bring the entire house of cards down when I least need it.

I'll have another look at the config file tonight, I was totally burned yesterday. I work in front of a computer all day, going home and wrestling with that issue is not fun in any way shape or form.

[exploder]

Could there have been an update for cups? Possibly there could be a higher level update for cups? The whole system will not go down over a problem like this,

[Rusty1]

Try this: Open the Synaptic package manager , mark cups and cups-browserd for complete removal, and Apply. Kill all cupsd and cups-browserd processes, or reboot. Open Synaptic and install cups and only cups, expand the Details while it installs to see if any errors.

After the new unstallation, see if Firefox can connect to localhost:631, and if so install your printer. Do not use the Canon install script, but rather click Administration at top of Cups page, Add Printer and browse to the PPD for the printer.

[ULTRA001]

Hi exploder,
what I mean is: something, whether caused by my wife, daughter, me, an update, whatever, has done enough to cripple the printing capabilities of my setup, and has stopped it form communicating with localhost:631 - and what else happened which may come home to roost later on?

What is odd, was when I got home on Monday, CUPS was actually working, but it had 'lost' the Canon printer. Then it would accept my username and password but would give the localhost error, then, after a couple more 'ins and outs' looking to get CUPS to find the printer again, would not connect at all. It was like it died in front of my eyes...strange...

Hi Rusty1,
I will try that. But, the files from Canon are the .sh install script and .deb files, no PPD that I could see? That was one of the obstacles I had at the beginning.

I've been summoned to a meeting this evening...in a way that's a good thing, I'm getting a bit OCD about this problem. But, now I'm starting to think to move important things off the SSD onto the HDD, reinstall Mint and be done with it.

But I would like to get to the bottom of the problem to stop it happening again!