Bug 430510

Summary:	lpq says 'ready and printing' although USB-cable not plugged in
Product:	[openSUSE] openSUSE 11.0	Reporter:	Juergen Weigert <jw>
Component:	Printing	Assignee:	Johannes Meixner <jsmeix>
Status:	RESOLVED UPSTREAM	QA Contact:	Johannes Meixner <jsmeix>
Severity:	Normal
Priority:	P5 - None
Version:	Final
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	Other
OS:	Other
Whiteboard:
Found By:	---	Services Priority:
Business Priority:		Blocker:	---
Marketing QA Status:	---	IT Deployment:	---
Bug Depends on:
Bug Blocks:	357354

Description Juergen Weigert 2008-09-28 20:24:11 UTC

This is a lenovo x60s laptop, with photosmartc5200serie printer configured.

While the printer is not connected, 
print requests get queued, and lpq reports the printer as 'ready and printing'.
As soon as the USB-cable is plugged into the laptop, the printer starts printing.

Suggested enhancement:
- Make lpq hint at the missing USB-connection. E.g. "printer offline" while the cable is not plugged in.

- The HP-Device-Manager Icon in the task bar could also indicate that there
is a problem blocking a queued job. E.g. change background color to red.

Comment 1 Klaus Singvogel 2008-09-29 15:48:57 UTC

Sorry, but we are not responsible for old printing terms (which were legacies from old Berkeley printing system), and they are misused today in lack of better states.

"Printer is ready" means: the print queue is "enabled" or just "accepts jobs".

"Printer is printing" means: a job is currently processed.
As the USB device is hot plugable, the USB printer is tried to be found in the system and the job then been printed. This state is named "printing" as it honors lazy systems and/or lazy printers. After a few minutes this "search & print" behavior is stopped and an error message will be shown by "lpq" then.

Please refer to the appropriate RFC for the naming. Please ask there if they aren't willing to rename the states or introduce new ones.

If this is done, CUPS will be renaming the states as defined by the new RFC in the future. In the meantime I'll close it with UPSTREAM.

Thanks for understanding.