Printer error

DISCUSSION Bill Pleasants 3 participants 6 messages Dec 16, 2002 – Dec 19, 2002

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Bill Pleasants

author

2002-12-16 03:14 UTC #0 lore raw

Hello,
After installing RH 8.0 in my HP Pentium II, my first successful installation,
I installed a Brother HL-720 printer. I set it up local. The Printer Administration window shows:
Command: lpr

Driver: Generic Printer (SGENPRT)

Location:

After printing 2 of 3 pages from
Mapquest, the printer indicated toner out. I replaced the cartridge and
there was an error light which can be cleared by unplugging the printer
cable and cycling the printer off. I reset the print queue and the same
2 pages printed and the error light flashed. Rebooted - same error light.
Attempts to print additional items failed. Later I entered "lprm" to cancel anything pending and got "local host IP not available." When I entered
"/etc/init.d/lpd stop" I got "[FAILED]"
I repeated it and got
"[FAILED]"
"local host IP not available"
In the panel is a ? which when clicked gives
"Temporary error in name resolution."
So far I haven't learned what this IP is about. I would appreciate help. Yours truly, Bill

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Ray Olszewski

2002-12-16 17:05 UTC #1 lore raw

You don't give us much to go on, but since the problems seem to be with name resolution, I'd suggest you tell us the details of your system as they relate to that.

First is your networking setup. Are you connected to a LAN or directly to the internet? (I guess you must be if you are using MapQuest.) If so, how?

More immediately, how does your system do name-to-address resolution? Does it rely on /etc/hosts? If so, what are the contents of that file? Or does it use a nameserver? If so, is it accessable? And what are the contents of the /etc/resolv.conf file?

Does the message really say "local host" rather than "localhost"? What result do you get if (from the command line) you try "ping localhost"?

How is the printer connected to the PC? Parallel port? Something else?

Although your questions involve generic Linux applications, the form of your report is specific to RH 8.0. My questions ask for more generic Linux information, which will permit non-RH users to try to assess your problem. If you prefer to stick with the RH tools, that's fine ... in that case, I hope someone else here, someone who does use RH 8.0, pops in with translations of these suggestions to Red Hat-ese.

Finally, as to your immediate problem ... if the third page of a epecific document continues to fail to print, while other docs print fine (do they? you haven't said), i'd suspect something odd about the specific document. Generically, you need to investigate how general the printing problem is before we can tackle it systematically.

Quoted 9 lines · Bill Pleasants

Hello,
After installing RH 8.0 in my HP Pentium II, my first successful installation,
I installed a Brother HL-720 printer. I set it up local. The Printer Administration window shows:
Command: lpr
Driver: Generic Printer (SGENPRT)
Location:

Quoted 14 lines

After printing 2 of 3 pages from
Mapquest, the printer indicated toner out. I replaced the cartridge and
there was an error light which can be cleared by unplugging the printer
cable and cycling the printer off. I reset the print queue and the same
2 pages printed and the error light flashed. Rebooted - same error light.
Attempts to print additional items failed. Later I entered "lprm" to cancel anything pending and got "local host IP not available." When I entered
"/etc/init.d/lpd stop" I got "[FAILED]"
I repeated it and got
"[FAILED]"
"local host IP not available"
In the panel is a ? which when clicked gives
"Temporary error in name resolution."
So far I haven't learned what this IP is about. I would appreciate help.

--
-------------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"--------
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, California, USA [email protected]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bill Pleasants

2002-12-18 03:25 UTC #2 lore raw

Quoted 3 lines · Ray Olszewski

You don't give us much to go on, but since the problems seem to be with name resolution, I'd suggest you tell us the details of your system as they relate to that.
First is your networking setup. Are you connected to a LAN or directly to the internet? (I guess you must be if you are using MapQuest.) If so, how?

This is a LANless computer connected to the internet by a 56K modem.

Quoted 2 lines

More immediately, how does your system do name-to-address resolution? Does it rely on /etc/hosts? If so, what are the contents of that file? Or does it use a nameserver? If so, is it accessable? And what are the contents of the /etc/resolv.conf file?

I have some notion of what name-to-address resolution is for the internet but not what it is for the Linux OS. /etc/hosts contains:
"# Do not remove the following line, or various programs

   # that require network functionality will fail.
   127.0.0.1    localhost.localdomain

Bill Pleasants

2002-12-18 03:44 UTC #3 lore raw

Re: Printer error (errata)

In reply to Ray Olszewski

My previous message got truncated. I hope this gets through.

Quoted 3 lines · Ray Olszewski

You don't give us much to go on, but since the problems seem to be with name resolution, I'd suggest you tell us the details of your system as they relate to that.
First is your networking setup. Are you connected to a LAN or directly to the internet? (I guess you must be if you are using MapQuest.) If so, how?

This is a LANless computer connected to the internet by a 56K modem.

Quoted 2 lines

More immediately, how does your system do name-to-address resolution? Does it rely on /etc/hosts? If so, what are the contents of that file? Or does it use a nameserver? If so, is it accessable? And what are the contents of the /etc/resolv.conf file?

I have some notion of what name-to-address resolution is for the internet but not what it is for the Linux OS. /etc/hosts contains:
"# Do not remove the following line, or various programs

  # that require network functionality will fail.
  127.0.0.1    localhost.localdomain

Quoted 2 lines

Does the message really say "local host" rather than "localhost"? What result do you get if (from the command line) you try "ping localhost"?

This is cut and paste:
"[bill@localhost bill]$ lprm
Get_local_host: 'localhost' IP address not available!"

"[bill@localhost bill]$ ping localhost
ping: unknown host localhost"

Quoted 2 lines

How is the printer connected to the PC? Parallel port? Something else?

Parallel port.

Quoted 2 lines

Although your questions involve generic Linux applications, the form of your report is specific to RH 8.0. My questions ask for more generic Linux information, which will permit non-RH users to try to assess your problem. If you prefer to stick with the RH tools, that's fine ... in that case, I hope someone else here, someone who does use RH 8.0, pops in with translations of these suggestions to Red Hat-ese.

I have no preference for RH other than that it was recommended and I was given a copy.

Quoted 2 lines

Finally, as to your immediate problem ... if the third page of a epecific document continues to fail to print, while other docs print fine (do they? you haven't said), i'd suspect something odd about the specific document. Generically, you need to investigate how general the printing problem is before we can tackle it systematically.

I did not retain the file I first tried to print. Additional attempts to print have produced no response from the printer. Thank you for your offer to help.

Quoted 12 lines

Quoted 9 lines · Bill Pleasants
Hello,
After installing RH 8.0 in my HP Pentium II, my first successful installation,
I installed a Brother HL-720 printer. I set it up local. The Printer Administration window shows:
Command: lpr
Driver: Generic Printer (SGENPRT)
Location:

Quoted 31 lines

Quoted 14 lines
After printing 2 of 3 pages from
Mapquest, the printer indicated toner out. I replaced the cartridge and
there was an error light which can be cleared by unplugging the printer
cable and cycling the printer off. I reset the print queue and the same
2 pages printed and the error light flashed. Rebooted - same error light.
Attempts to print additional items failed. Later I entered "lprm" to cancel anything pending and got "local host IP not available." When I entered
"/etc/init.d/lpd stop" I got "[FAILED]"
I repeated it and got
"[FAILED]"
"local host IP not available"
In the panel is a ? which when clicked gives
"Temporary error in name resolution."
So far I haven't learned what this IP is about. I would appreciate help.
Signature · 12 lines
-------------------------------------------"Never tell me the 
odds!"--------
Ray Olszewski                    -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, California, USA              [email protected]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 


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the body of a message to [email protected]
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Please read the FAQ at http://www.linux-learn.org/faqs

Ray Olszewski

2002-12-18 06:15 UTC #4 lore raw

Re: Printer error (errata)

You did not provide some of the information I asked for (namely, the contents of /etc/resolv.conf), but from what you did provide, the likely source of the lprm problem is an inconsistency between your lpr setup and /etc/hosts . As you report below, your /etc/hosts file only identifies the machine as localhost.localdomain and not also as just localhost. Consequently, the resolver cannot associate localhost with your machine, as is illustrated by the ping failure you also report.

Probably you can fix the lprm problem by editing the entry (yeah, I know it says "Do not remove", but this is editing, not removing) so it reads:

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost

Do that and see if lprm now works. If not, tell us what the problem now loks like.

As to the underlying problem ... by "Additional attempts to print", do you mean trying to print different files? Preferably something nice and easy, like a short text file (/etc/hosts itself will do for a test)? Does "lpq" show anything significant? If you power-cycle the printer, does it now start to print? DId the printer successfully print other files prior to failing with the final page of the MapQuest one?

At 10:44 PM 12/17/02 -0500, Bill Pleasants wrote:
[...]

Quoted 16 lines

Quoted 1 line
More immediately, how does your system do name-to-address resolution? Does it rely on /etc/hosts? If so, what are the contents of that file? Or does it use a nameserver? If so, is it accessable? And what are the contents of the /etc/resolv.conf file?
I have some notion of what name-to-address resolution is for the internet but not what it is for the Linux OS. /etc/hosts contains:
"# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
  # that require network functionality will fail.
  127.0.0.1    localhost.localdomain
Quoted 2 lines
Does the message really say "local host" rather than "localhost"? What result do you get if (from the command line) you try "ping localhost"?
This is cut and paste:
"[bill@localhost bill]$ lprm
Get_local_host: 'localhost' IP address not available!"
"[bill@localhost bill]$ ping localhost
ping: unknown host localhost"

[...]

Quoted 3 lines

Quoted 1 line
Finally, as to your immediate problem ... if the third page of a epecific document continues to fail to print, while other docs print fine (do they? you haven't said), i'd suspect something odd about the specific document. Generically, you need to investigate how general the printing problem is before we can tackle it systematically.
I did not retain the file I first tried to print. Additional attempts to print have produced no response from the printer. Thank you for your offer to help.

[...]
--
-------------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"--------
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, California, USA [email protected]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bill Pleasants

2002-12-19 21:03 UTC #5 lore raw

Re: Printer error (correction)

Hello,
When I started the computer today, the Internet Device Control worked so I copied last night's message below to put it in the thread. Also I checked the printer manual and see that the flashing light that I said indicated "toner out" indicates a malfunction designated "Service C" if not cleared by cycling power which it was.

My 12/18 mesage:

Quoted 9 lines · Ray Olszewski

Quoted 7 lines
You did not provide some of the information I asked for (namely, the contents of /etc/resolv.conf), but from what you did provide, the likely source of the lprm problem is an inconsistency between your lpr setup and /etc/hosts . As you report below, your /etc/hosts file only identifies the machine as localhost.localdomain and not also as just localhost. Consequently, the resolver cannot associate localhost with your machine, as is illustrated by the ping failure you also report.

I failed to mention there is no resolv.conf file.

Quoted 11 lines

Quoted 9 lines
Probably you can fix the lprm problem by editing the entry (yeah, I know it says "Do not remove", but this is editing, not removing) so it reads:
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
Do that and see if lprm now works. If not, tell us what the problem now loks like.

"[bill@localhost bill]$ lprm
Printer 'Print@localhost' - cannot open connection - No such file or
directory
Make sure the remote host supports the LPD protocol
and accepts connections from this host and from non-privileged
(>1023) ports"

Quoted 10 lines

Quoted 8 lines
As to the underlying problem ... by "Additional attempts to print", do you mean trying to print different files? Preferably something nice and easy, like a short text file (/etc/hosts itself will do for a test)? Does "lpq" show anything significant? If you power-cycle the printer, does it now start to print? DId the printer successfully print other files prior to failing with the final page of the MapQuest one?

After the change in the hosts file, I tried printing the hosts file from gedit, another file from Open Office and your email from Mozilla. (I did not reboot.)

"[bill@localhost bill]$ lpq
Printer 'Print@localhost' - cannot open connection - No such file or
directory
Make sure the remote host supports the LPD protocol
and accepts connections from this host and from non-privileged
(>1023) ports"

Power cycling the printer did not print. There is no error light showing. I don't remember if more than 2 pages printed. It was a while ago. While I was logged on as root, I also changed the boot run level from 3 to 5.

And then .. the Network Device Control failed to function so I rebooted. And then .... the printer started and printed the 2 MapQuest pages (from 10/15 I see) and stopped with the "toner out" light flashing. I pulled the parallel plug, cycled the power, got the "ready" light, plugged the parallel back and got the error light again. clicking to print this message did not change the printer.
And then ...... The NDC failed again so I changed the hosts file back, rebooted and still no go. So I copied this message to a floppy to take to my MS computer to send. So that's what the problem looks like.

Quoted 58 lines

Quoted 58 lines
At 10:44 PM 12/17/02 -0500, Bill Pleasants wrote:
[...]
Quoted 30 lines
Quoted 30 lines
Quoted 4 lines
Quoted 4 lines
More immediately, how does your system do name-to-address resolution? Does it rely on /etc/hosts? If so, what are the contents of that file? Or does it use a nameserver? If so, is it accessable? And what are the contents of the /etc/resolv.conf file?
I have some notion of what name-to-address resolution is for the internet but not what it is for the Linux OS. /etc/hosts contains:
"# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
  # that require network functionality will fail.
  127.0.0.1    localhost.localdomain
Quoted 4 lines
Quoted 4 lines
Does the message really say "local host" rather than "localhost"? What result do you get if (from the command line) you try "ping localhost"?
This is cut and paste:
"[bill@localhost bill]$ lprm
Get_local_host: 'localhost' IP address not available!"
"[bill@localhost bill]$ ping localhost
ping: unknown host localhost"
[...]
Quoted 12 lines
Quoted 12 lines
Quoted 5 lines
Quoted 5 lines
Finally, as to your immediate problem ... if the third page of a epecific document continues to fail to print, while other docs print fine (do they? you haven't said), i'd suspect something odd about the specific document. Generically, you need to investigate how general the printing problem is before we can tackle it systematically.
I did not retain the file I first tried to print. Additional attempts to print have produced no response from the printer. Thank you for your offer to help.

Quoted 9 lines

Quoted 7 lines
[...]
-- -------------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"--------
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, California, USA [email protected]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quoted 11 lines

Quoted 9 lines
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-newbie" in
the body of a message to [email protected]
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.linux-learn.org/faqs