IPads can't print after iOS 8

Question

we're a large school district, with tons of iPads, most of which can go to iOS8 and probably will.
Printing is handled by having a central CUPS server with queues; each school has its own search domain for iOS and all CUPS queues in that domain are visible to ALL iOS devices searching that domain (in practise, on that site). i manually enter data in dns for these queues. Printers capable of direct AirPrint (new HPs, as that is the maker of most of our approved models) do not have CUPS queues or dns entries, and are visible to wireless devices on that site.
Now with iOS 8, things have changed.
a) printing from the CUPS server no longer works. The list populates with the printer on the CUPS server, but ALL are greyed out, and selecting one just gets you back to the Print box with "Select Printer >" showing, not the printer name.
     i. i have been able to print to ONE HP401, right at my desk, directly. another HP401 in the same building, and a HP602 across the campus, i can see but are also greyed out and i cannot select them.
b) names of the printers have changed, from the queue names i entered into DNS to generic model (room) in the text dns entry. i suspect i can work on that.
c) before, users had to be absolutely certain that Double-sided was switched OFF, or nothing would print. Now when i printed to this HP401 behind me, i left Double-sided switched on and *it printed*. this would be *excellent* if we can get printing to actually work for all the enabled printers (eg - all printers on the CUPS server, and any HPs i've allowed to be seen directly).
This is a pain - everything i've found so far searching has address firmware updates on the printers, with printers apparently going into cybernetic loops when sent a job from the iOS device. This problem is different: we can see the printers, we CANNOT SELECT them. So it's not the printers themselves.
on my test iPad i've done the complete power-off, forget this network, disable WiFi location . . . nothing gets it to successfully select a CUPS queue to print.
Unfortunately, a school community cascades - once a teacher tells others they've updated, others will follow BEFORE finding out if it works or not. (Why testing wasn't done first, i don't know.) So i expect to be getting an avalanche of email soon . . . i'd like to be able to say yes, i've figured out/fixed the problem - and btw, double-sided now works! -- but i doubt it will be soon.
Please, anyone else having this issue?
thank you!

Answer 1

I have the same problem with CUPs printers on my network, a 'legitimate' HP AirPrint printer works after update. iOS 7 devices on the same network are fine with the CUPs printers.
I think Apple have deliberately messed this up with iOS 8, look back at the history of the iOS releases. On every release from 4 they have taken new steps to break AirPrint so that it only works with approved printers. Originally it worked with a static DNS-SD config which was great, then it needed Bonjour, then it needed image/urf and a few other fields set. For iOS 8 they have done something else and not told anybody, but it seems like a deliberate act to ensure it only works with approved AirPrint printers.
There must be some agreement with the printer manufacturers or something for Apple to do this, I struggle to understand why Apple do this because for me it really annoys me. I do not mind everything else, but with every iOS release I know my printer is going to break until somebody smarter than myself figures out what needs to be changed. It is almost a cat and mouse game. Why do we have to play this?? I regret upgrading the HP printer so quickly, I should have scanned the network before the printer upgrade and then scanned again after the printer upgrade to find out what the differences were and then update the CUPs/AVAHI config with the differences (Assuming there were any, but my guess at the moment is a UUID field is required for the printer).
There is no reason at all why printing cannot work with just a DNS-SD entry as per iOS 4 the device just needs the entry point of the printer, you do not even need Bonjour for the active DNS (that change forced us to all use avahi with CUPs).
It is such a shame Apple pursue this route. AirPrint is a great technology and it could just work without all of this fuss and pain and without annoying the user base. Apple make so much money they really have no excuse to make things so difficult and close this down in an attempt to force consumers or schools such as yourselves to buy new printers. Somebody somewhere is getting some benefit from killing this connectivity it for sure is not the end user.