Cups: printers disappeared [solution inside]

i have no idea when or what happened, but localhost:631 lists no printers any more (and also kde, gnome, ... says, there are no printers around)
any ideas what can have caused it? (i didn't used printing for ~1month, so i don't know when it happened exactly)

I think it has to do with the recent cups update, that renamed your cups config files to .pacsave files. At least I remember pacman alerting me about this, when I upgraded cups.
I think the files renamed were:
/etc/cups/cups.conf
/etc/cups/printers.conf
/etc/cups/mime.types

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Can't locate email content? All of a sudden my email content has disappeared from inside MacMail? The actual emails are coming through but I am unable to view them as the area is just left blank! Nothing has been done to have changed this?

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Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a test, not a solution. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
Step 1
The purpose of this step is to determine whether the problem is localized to your user account.
Enable guest logins* and log in as Guest. Don't use the Safari-only “Guest User” login created by “Find My Mac.”
While logged in as Guest, you won’t have access to any of your documents or settings. Applications will behave as if you were running them for the first time. Don’t be alarmed by this behavior; it’s normal. If you need any passwords or other personal data in order to complete the test, memorize, print, or write them down before you begin.
Test while logged in as Guest. Same problem?
After testing, log out of the guest account and, in your own account, disable it if you wish. Any files you created in the guest account will be deleted automatically when you log out of it.
*Note: If you’ve activated “Find My Mac” or FileVault, then you can’t enable the Guest account. The “Guest User” login created by “Find My Mac” is not the same. Create a new account in which to test, and delete it, including its home folder, after testing.
Step 2
The purpose of this step is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login, by a peripheral device, by a font conflict, or by corruption of the file system or of certain system caches.
Please take this step regardless of the results of Step 1.
Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards, if applicable. Start up in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. You must hold down the shift key twice: once when you turn on the computer, and again when you log in.
Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to start up and run than normal, with limited graphics performance, and some things won’t work at all, including sound output and Wi-Fi on certain models. The next normal startup may also be somewhat slow.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
Test while in safe mode. Same problem?
After testing, restart as usual (not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of Steps 1 and 2.

Bonjour printers disappearing

I have a problem with a G-5 PPC which has had it's Bonjour printers disappear from the print menu and not appear in the Printer Setup Utility.
This problem followed the 4.11 update. It reappeared after a archive and reinstall, followed by update.
Anyone have any ideas. I have run out as Bonjour is not only setup free, it seems untouchable.
Thanks

Did the attempt to add the printer failed, or did the log-on failed?. Just in case, (I think you did it right, anyway) you have to enter the account Short Name as stated in System Preferences, rather than the user Name, e.g for the user John Smith, enter the short name johnsmith rather than the user name John.
If you cannot add them thru the CUPS interface, I can suggest you to take a somewhat different course of action:
Open Terminal and type this command again:
lookupd -flushcache (press Return)
then log out, and back in. If you can see the Bonjour printers briefly, and then they disappear again, then:
Reset the Printing System form the Printer Setup Utility (do not try to reinstall the printers yet), and then run some system utility to "clean" the system.
Personally, I prefer MainMenu, because I find it simpler to use, but you can also run Onyx, Cocktail, etc to achieve the same results.
In case you use MainMenu, in the Cleaning tab, clean all the users caches and do a deep clean of the system cache, verify the preference files, flush the lookupd cache (from the Other Taks tab), and restart. This boot up will last longer than usual.

Printers disappear when trying to print pdf/a documents...?

The only way to get the printers back is to roll back windows. Very time consuming and irritating. Does anyone know it this is a common problem or if it is more likely to be a faulty installation?
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Mats

Is this a home system or a work environment?
What's your OS? Acrobat version?
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Hello DaveDue
Start your troubleshooting with the article below, you may need to download the printer drivers directly from the manufactures website.
Troubleshooting printer issues in OS X
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts3147
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-Norm G.

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am getting many complaints that printing has become slow, not sure if that is related or not.) Any suggestions or ideas on what might be causing this would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
JR

Hi,
Please check if
KB2995388 was installed in that Windows Server 2012 R2. It may cause similar issues as reported in following thread.
Print
Management Console displays no printers after applying Windows Update for Windows Server 2012 R2 (KB2995388)
If any update, please feel free to let me know.
Hope this helps.
Best regards,
Justin Gu

Printers disappeared from printer Utility

Not only have my printers disappeared from the printer utility window I also get the error message "server-error-service-unavailable I have tried the fixes on the OS X support page such as: Repairing permissions on the startup drive; verifying the /tmp file thru terminal but I still can't see my printers and still get the error message. Any help would be appreciated.

This just happened to me as well. G5 dual, 10.3.9. Earlier in the day I ran software update which applied a security update to the OS and some other updates (Quicktime, Garage Band, etc.). I repaired permissions before and after. For a while I could print as normal over the network (printers not directly connected to this Mac). Later in the day I suddenly got "no printers selected" and when I went to add/delete in the Printer Setup Utility, I got the "server-error-service-unavailable" message and the utility hung. I've shut the machine down completely, but the problem persists on re-start.
Are there perhaps corrupted prefs to trash? I don't want to just go trashing stuff blindly.
Or does it indicate a server problem, not my machine? Doubt it because others can print successfully.

Printers disappear

My question is similar to others but also different. About 2 weeks ago I did a clean re-install of Snow Leopard including all the updates. I have a Brother 5340D and an Epson 2880 printer and an Epson scanner. Printer drivers were updated and both working normally. They are not on any network - USB cables are plugged directly into the iMac port. All three show up in the System Profiler window indicating that they are indeed connected.
Yesterday both printers disappeared from all print dialogs and I cannot re-install them. The Print & Fax preference window is empty. When I click the "+" button the Add a Printer dialog appears. Both printers and the scanner show up here. When I click on one of the printers and choose Add a dialog pops up asking if I want to download and install software for the printer. When I say Install, Software Update goes out and updates the drivers and says "successful". Choosing add again repeats the process. Trying to reset the "printing system" by Option clicking the "+" button does nothing different.
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Thanks, Eric. However I have tried this several times and as I said initially, this process does not work for me. Even though the link you sent is for Mountain Lion, I assume the process is similar. The "Set up a printer" link does not work. There are no printers in the list to begin with (see the screen shot). The system does appear to reset but trying to add the printers back repeats the process described above.

Printers disappeared after upgrade to Mavericks

All printers disappeared from user account after upgrade to Mavericks from 10.6.8 by Migration Assistant.
The obvious question: How to migrate the printers?
I don't recall each individual printer setup and just want to move them over.

Hello Mac Experts,
I recently upgraded from Tiger to Leopard and I too am having this same issue. After my upgrade was completed, I checked my printers and noticed that all my network printers were gone. I have never perform an OS X upgrade before and this is my first attempt, although the upgrade was successful but I was a bit surprised that all the network printers that I have were gone.
For those us either in a small SOHO this is no big deal, however, if you're in a big environment where you have a lot of machines this would be a big problem and would create a lot of unnecessary work and time wasted.
Have any of you Mac experts perform an upgrade from Panther to Tiger? If so, did you loose all your network printers that you have configured in System Preferences > Print & Fax
Could this be a bug in Leopard????

Deploy CUPS printers.conf file via ARD?

Hi all
Anyone have an idea how to push out CUPS Printers to Tiger clients using ARD 3? I have been trying to send out the printers.conf file located in /etc/cups to a few Macs, but after the CUPS file copies to its destination, print jobs error out with a generic "a printing error has occurred" message. I checked permissions, etc and everything looks good. I assume Im missing another file somewhere but am stumped.
Basically what I want to do is set my Mac with 5 AppleTalk printers from my LAN, and then reproduce those printers for 10 other Macs so that those users see the exact same printers I see in my Print Setup Utility. I don't want to have to set up the printers manually on each Mac. I figured it would be a no-brainer to just copy my "golden" CUPS file via ARD to the other Macs but I'm having no luck at all thus far.
Once the printers.conf file is copied to their Macs, They can "see" the new printers in their Print Setup Utility.app as desired, but they are unable to print to any of them ("printer error occured"). Rebooting doesn't help.
Facts:
All Macs and printers are in the same AppleTalk zone.
All Macs are on the same subnet and VLAN.
All Macs are the identical version of OS X and are from the same NetBoot NetRestore master image.
All Macs are running 10.4.7.
Users do not need to authenticate to print.
All printing is done direct to the printers - no print server is in the middle.
All Macs have the ARD 3.0 client properly installed.
All Macs are Power Mac PPC G5s with 1.5 GB RAM.
No users are logged into their Macs when I attempt to copy the printers.conf file (no users are printing or running Print Setup Utility etc)
All of the printers are PostScript/PCL HP LaserJet's with valid AppleTalk names and Zone info.
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There must be a practical way to mass-deploy CUPS printer settings to my Macs via ARD. Obviously I'm missing a critical step. Any ideas?
Thanks!

This is possible, but you have to be very careful because one mistake will cause this to fail:
1. On your template computer system, reset the printing system via Printer Setup Utility then configure your printers.
2. Backup the following files, noting their proper POSIX permissions:
/etc/cups/printers.conf (root:lp, 600)
/etc/cups/ppd (whole folder) (root:lp, 755)
3. Use ARD to deploy the files in the following way:
a. Log out all users on the client systems and reset the printing system by executing Apple's Reset Printing System script via Send UNIX command as root:
/Applications/Utilities/Printer\ Setup\ Utility.app/Contents/MacOS/PrintingReset.sh
b. Stop CUPS (PrintingServices) before copying any new configuration files (Send UNIX Command as root): SystemStarter stop PrintingServices
c. Distribute the printers.conf file and ppds folder to the clients. You can either copy the items there via Copy Items, setting owner and group to root and lp, and issuing appropriate chmod commands via Send UNIX Command to set their permissions.
d. Repair Permissions (Send UNIX Command as root): diskutil repairPermissions /
e. Start PrintingServices again: SystemStarter start PrintingServices, and restart.
That should work. You can also distribute a printer list via the managed client, storing a printer list in the com.apple.mcxprinting XML file in an attribute mapped to dsAttrTypeStandard:MCXSettings in a computer (dsRecTypeStandard:Computers) account or group (dsRecTypeStandard:Groups) account. Account types from NetInfo, LDAPv3, or Active Directory will work.
--Gerrit

[SOLVED] CUPS-printers gone since last upgrade

Last weekend I upgraded my system and everything went smoothly. A day or two later I noticed, that printers on remote machines are no more available, not even visible. They work fine on the machines they are connected to but are not even visible from my machine.
One printer is an old HP LaserJet 5L at an old sidux distro, where cups is of version 1.4. It worked for ages and hasn't been touched in any way since sidux has gone.
The other printer is a HP LaserJet P2055d at an archlinux server installation, which is up to date as my (client) machine is. So. latest cups (ver. 1.6).
Until last weekend the connection to those printers was easy, I even had not to go through the Add Printer wizard of cups (using Firefox). The printer always were visible and IIRC coul be added with a click on an oK button. Until now to go through the Add-Printer wizard was only necessary for SAMBA printers: Other network printer, choose Windows Printer via SAMBA etc.
SAMBA printers work, however.
So I thought I go through that wizard for my remote cUPS printers too. But no success: Printer not available, wrong URI and the like.
Sorry for my lengthy post, but I don't know were to look first and what to check. The cups config files don't seem to habe been changed, so I'm a bit lost and need some pointers.
poseidon
Last edited by poseidon (2012-08-09 19:16:38)

swordfish wrote:
poseidon wrote:
I went through that and coulbn't find anything that applies to my situation (well, at least I think so). Even "Remote access to web interface" doesn#t seem to apply because the remote machines weren't touched. And, I have access to them.
poseidon
Hi there,
with Cups 1.6 the avahi-daemon has to be up and running before cupsd is started. Is this the case with your configuration?
No, so I have corrected the rc.conf of the server machine, stopped cupsd, restarted avahi-daemon, started cupsd. No success. Did this on server and client machine. Shouldn't my client machine be able to find that printer when I press Find New printer?
Okay, Plan B: I've always had difficulties to see which protocol to use and how the URI should look like if I use the Add Printer wizard. Any pointers besides the cups documentation (which is rahter hard to understand)?
poseidon

After installing mavericks on mac mini network printers disappeared

After installing Mavericks on my Mac Mini, all printers on the home wifi network disappeared and cannot get them back. Tried deleting and re-installing printers and all updates. Network does not see them from the Mac Mini. Is there some workaround or solution to this? Everything worked perfectly until the Mavericks upgrade.

Was there any evidence of a new or update printer driver at the Epson site for use with Mavericks OS X? Even if so, that may not be enough as the peripherial makers can be steps behind a new & different OS.
I have two Epson printers, one is an all-in-one WF845 (bought at 50% off) and an older Photo Stylus 820, this still makes great prints; both work wireless in different ways. However I have what are essentially antiques in both hardware and software.
Not sure if there are any third party drivers that could help as a fix or a patch for the situation you face, if Epson hasn't a working alternative to being printerless. Too bad that paperless society didn't evolve to save a few trees and thousands of gallons in expensive ink.
Good luck & happy computing!

Shared printers disappearing after Adding

Every time I try and print to a shared printer on a wireless network, it only works once. The next time I start the application the added printer is gone.

I'm having a similar problem. When I'm at the office I print to 2 shared printers that are attached to other Macs on our network. At the end of the day I take my MacBook Pro home with me. When I come back to the office in the morning and plug into the network, all my printers are no longer listed in my print dialogue windows. I have to "Add Printer" to get them to show up, then they work just fine all day. But then the same thing happens the next day, and the next day, etc. The printers that have been directly plugged into my MacBook Pro are always listed and they never disappear. Solution anyone?

Printers disappearing

I have an Intel iMac 2012 Mac 21.5 running OS 10.8.5. The printers keep disappearing from the list of printers. All printers or networked on the same segment and switch. The printers are networked with a static IP address and Bonjour. I have tried adding the printers by IP and by Bonjour. The printers will remain as an option for a day or two then disappear.
We have several other iMacs running OS 10.8.5 and connected to the printers and they do not lose the connection. Just this iMac. So the network and printer do not appear to be the problem.
Any ideas what to look for? Or what to remove and reinstall?

Hi,
Based on the description, we can try to enable the following policy setting to see if it helps:
Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Logon\ Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon
After applying the policy setting, we can try to re-logon the users to see if they can get the printers.
If the issue persists, we can try to run the following reg file to see if it helps:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Group Policy\{BC75B1ED-5833-4858-9BB8-CBF0B166DF9D}]
@="Printers Policy Processing"
"NoSlowLink"=dword:00000000
"NoBackgroundPolicy"=dword:00000000
"NoGPOListChanges"=dword:00000000
"BackgroundPriorityLevel"=dword:00000000
If yes, we can utilize group policy to deploy the reg file as a logon script for users.
Best regards,
Frank Shen
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All printers disappeared after upgrade to Leopard

I made an upgrade to Leopard and all my production printers just disspeared under System preferences - print and fax.
It wasn't a big thing to reinstall 4 print drivers. Well, that is, not yet known what happened to my CS3's Acrobat 7's PDF printer yet. For the 3 others Xerox production RIPs, I just redid the install.
What I did is to use the new WINDOWS printer connector and this is great! It took me like 10 secs to set each of them. So easy and great improvements inside the printer installation. I've used the Xerox and Roland sites' PPD and there we go... all connected.
Great improvements but too bad they all dissapear after upgrade...

Hello Mac Experts,
I recently upgraded from Tiger to Leopard and I too am having this same issue. After my upgrade was completed, I checked my printers and noticed that all my network printers were gone. I have never perform an OS X upgrade before and this is my first attempt, although the upgrade was successful but I was a bit surprised that all the network printers that I have were gone.
For those us either in a small SOHO this is no big deal, however, if you're in a big environment where you have a lot of machines this would be a big problem and would create a lot of unnecessary work and time wasted.
Have any of you Mac experts perform an upgrade from Panther to Tiger? If so, did you loose all your network printers that you have configured in System Preferences > Print & Fax
Could this be a bug in Leopard????

Cups: printers disappeared [solution inside]

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