struggling w/ reliable printers on CUPS in small office
WLug-gers,
tl;dr: Can someone recommend a printer (or printer brand) that is reliable for printing via CUPS?
I’m struggling w/ printers in a small office and i've struggled to get any kind of guidance on-line. The volume of pages printed at the office is probably around 100 pages a day and there are 4 printers — all HPs and all consumer grade — each printer has its purpose, e.g. there's an 11x17 printer, one color laser, one BW laster, one color inkjet. The office is all iMACs, which connect to a Linux CUPS server. The iMacs were networking directly w/ the printers, but i added the CUPS server to try to mitigate the poor reliability with only marginal results. Routinely printers become “paused” in CUPS so i need to go in and ‘unpause’ them, also some printers just fall of the network entirely. Inevitably the only printer that works most of the time is the ink-jet which is a lot more expensive to re-fill.
I’m looking for a reliable solution. If anyone has a recomendation that’d be great!
Thanks, — Brad
I have an HP Officejet 8600 that only gets "paused" if I unplug it, in my testing. YMMV
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________________________________ From: Bradley Noyes via WLUG wlug@lists.wlug.org Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 11:07:29 AM To: Worcester Linux Users' Group General Discussion Cc: Bradley Noyes Subject: [WLUG] struggling w/ reliable printers on CUPS in small office
WLug-gers,
tl;dr: Can someone recommend a printer (or printer brand) that is reliable for printing via CUPS?
I’m struggling w/ printers in a small office and i've struggled to get any kind of guidance on-line. The volume of pages printed at the office is probably around 100 pages a day and there are 4 printers — all HPs and all consumer grade — each printer has its purpose, e.g. there's an 11x17 printer, one color laser, one BW laster, one color inkjet. The office is all iMACs, which connect to a Linux CUPS server. The iMacs were networking directly w/ the printers, but i added the CUPS server to try to mitigate the poor reliability with only marginal results. Routinely printers become “paused” in CUPS so i need to go in and ‘unpause’ them, also some printers just fall of the network entirely. Inevitably the only printer that works most of the time is the ink-jet which is a lot more expensive to re-fill.
I’m looking for a reliable solution. If anyone has a recomendation that’d be great!
Thanks, — Brad _______________________________________________ WLUG mailing list -- wlug@lists.wlug.org To unsubscribe send an email to wlug-leave@lists.wlug.org
Bradley> tl;dr: Can someone recommend a printer (or printer brand) Bradley> that is reliable for printing via CUPS?
In general, CUPS is pretty darn reliable. But can you post some logs from when the printer goes offline?
Bradley> I’m struggling w/ printers in a small office and i've Bradley> struggled to get any kind of guidance on-line. The volume of Bradley> pages printed at the office is probably around 100 pages a Bradley> day and there are 4 printers — all HPs and all consumer grade Bradley> — each printer has its purpose, e.g. there's an 11x17 Bradley> printer, one color laser, one BW laster, one color Bradley> inkjet. The office is all iMACs, which connect to a Linux Bradley> CUPS server. The iMacs were networking directly w/ the Bradley> printers, but i added the CUPS server to try to mitigate the Bradley> poor reliability with only marginal results.
So this is a key issue to me, if printing from the iMACs (which version of MacOS?) was un-reliable, then it points to a problem somewhere else. As others have said, maybe the power is bad? But have you checked your network as well? Do you have a switch or two which are dropping packets randomly? Yes, TCP should handle stuff like this, but maybe it's a wierd corruption issue somewhere?
Bradley> Routinely printers become “paused” in CUPS so i need to go in Bradley> and ‘unpause’ them, also some printers just fall of the Bradley> network entirely. Inevitably the only printer that works most Bradley> of the time is the ink-jet which is a lot more expensive to Bradley> re-fill.
Can you move your most used laser to the same network port/cable as the inkjet and see if that improves reliability?
Bradley> I’m looking for a reliable solution. If anyone has a Bradley> recomendation that’d be great!
I've got a Brother MFC-8860DN laser printer which has lasted me over 10+ years at home and been quite reliable. The only problem is that it's PostScript implementation is now getting long in the tooth. Best damn $400 printer I've ever gotten.
John
I thought i’d respond to this thread to circle back on my solution, which mostly works.
The progression of printer connections was the following, the last one is the one that worked.
imacs ——> WiFi (dhcp) ——> HP Printer imacs ——> ethernet (dhcp) ——> HP Printer imacs ——> ethernet (static IP) ——> HP Printer imacs ——> ethernet ——> Linux Cups Server ——> ethernet ——> HP Printer imacs ——> ethernet ——> Linux Cups Server ——> USB (over rj45) ——> HP Printer imacs ——> ethernat ——> Linux Cups Server on Raspberry PI ——> USB ——> HP Printer
As mentioned by contributors to this thread, the network stack on the HP Printers seem to be flaky, so any attempt that involved the HP Printer’s network stack would fail at some point. Its strange that all of the HP Printers in the office seem to be affected by this. Everything i tired that involved a network link to the HP Printers was very flaky. My second-to-last ditch effort was to try using USB over ethernet; since the printers and the Linux Cups Server are not physically close and i have network drops next to each, i tried the USB over ethernet dongles, which didn’t take. The devies were recognized, but i couldn’t print over the USB device. There were some postings online about setting some serial parameters, but i didn’t want to mess around with it too much. So my final solution was to use an old Raspberry Pi i had kicking around which can be placed next to the printers and connect via USB, and it can also be connected to the office network via ethernet. This has been rock solid and clears my desk of an old r-Pi.
In the end i can’t really come to a conclusion other that the HP Printer’s TCP stack is flaky. The rest of the network seems to be fine, i’ve never seen any troubles with anything else on the network. I’d occasional see the printer’s settings claim it is on-line, but have no IP address, which was always suspect to me. the printers operate reliably if using USB.
Anyway, just wanted to let y’all know that a raspberry-pi running CUPS was the best solution, and thank you for responding. Cheers, - brad
On Jan 25, 2019, at 11:27, John Stoffel via WLUG wlug@lists.wlug.org wrote:
Bradley> tl;dr: Can someone recommend a printer (or printer brand) Bradley> that is reliable for printing via CUPS?
In general, CUPS is pretty darn reliable. But can you post some logs from when the printer goes offline?
Bradley> I’m struggling w/ printers in a small office and i've Bradley> struggled to get any kind of guidance on-line. The volume of Bradley> pages printed at the office is probably around 100 pages a Bradley> day and there are 4 printers — all HPs and all consumer grade Bradley> — each printer has its purpose, e.g. there's an 11x17 Bradley> printer, one color laser, one BW laster, one color Bradley> inkjet. The office is all iMACs, which connect to a Linux Bradley> CUPS server. The iMacs were networking directly w/ the Bradley> printers, but i added the CUPS server to try to mitigate the Bradley> poor reliability with only marginal results.
So this is a key issue to me, if printing from the iMACs (which version of MacOS?) was un-reliable, then it points to a problem somewhere else. As others have said, maybe the power is bad? But have you checked your network as well? Do you have a switch or two which are dropping packets randomly? Yes, TCP should handle stuff like this, but maybe it's a wierd corruption issue somewhere?
Bradley> Routinely printers become “paused” in CUPS so i need to go in Bradley> and ‘unpause’ them, also some printers just fall of the Bradley> network entirely. Inevitably the only printer that works most Bradley> of the time is the ink-jet which is a lot more expensive to Bradley> re-fill.
Can you move your most used laser to the same network port/cable as the inkjet and see if that improves reliability?
Bradley> I’m looking for a reliable solution. If anyone has a Bradley> recomendation that’d be great!
I've got a Brother MFC-8860DN laser printer which has lasted me over 10+ years at home and been quite reliable. The only problem is that it's PostScript implementation is now getting long in the tooth. Best damn $400 printer I've ever gotten.
John _______________________________________________ WLUG mailing list -- wlug@lists.wlug.org To unsubscribe send an email to wlug-leave@lists.wlug.org
participants (3)
-
Bradley Noyes -
John Stoffel -
Krichevsky, Nicholas Jacob