Setting default printer does not work

[Peer]

Setting default printer does not work.

This is a nagging bug because it's affecting a commonly used, basic function.

This bug persisted for a long time already.
Upgrading from 13.10 to 14.04 did not help.

In my system, there are three configured printers: 1) a locally connected one (which can be absent or not at boot) - 2) the same printer accessed over the network at another computer - 3) another network printer.

Printer 3 should be the default printer, e.g. the one which is preselected when opening any print dialogue.

One can set a default printer in system settings - printer. I did this many times. The check box is set (and is still set when re-entering the dialogue later or another time), but each time a print dialogue is accessed in any program, another printer is preselected and not printer 3.

One can also set a default printer in the cups admin dialogue. This did not change the behavior. The desired printer is marked as default printer in the cups admin interface, but each time a print dialogue is accessed in e.g. okular, another printer is preselected. So one has to select each time the desired printer.

Not having to do that each time is what the setting "default printer" (by whatever dialogue) is for, but it simply does not work.

One thing I noticed is that in the /etc/cups/printers.conf, the desired printer (3) is marked as <DefaultPrinter Kyocera>, but the closing tag in this file is not named </DefaultPrinter> as one would expect but just </Printer>.

Maybe there is a conflict between two different systems for setting a default printer (cups vs. system settings)?

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

The <DefaultPrinter ...> ... </Printer> tags in printers.conf are absolutely correct and not the cause of the problem. It is also correct that when you set the system's default printer with any printer setup tool that then the entry in printers.conf gets a <DefaultPrinter ...> opening tag.

Problem can be that somewhere else a default printer is set, for example ina ~/.cups/lpoptions file in your home directory or in an /etc/cups/lpoptions file. Please check these files and remove any unwished default printer choices.

It is also possible that applications track a default printer by themselves or simply pre-select the printer used last within the application. AFAIK LibreOffice even tracks the las-used printer in the documents, making the "default" printer being selected per-document.

[Peer (peer-i)]

Indeed, changing the ~/.cups/lpoptions did the trick.

So this bug is a "documentation bug" and a "false pretense bug" because the dialog for setting the default printer only pretends to set the default printer, and doesn't tell anything about the other influences.

I even wonder now which setting the dialog influences anyway.

So I for now am happy,
but the problem I ran into is not solved at all because the dialog and the mecanisms are neither clear nor functional.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for cups (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Phil Pemberton (philpem)]

It appears that the printer dialogs are ignoring the system default printer, or they're picking up a default from elsewhere.

If you right-click a printer in the dialog box, then select Set As Default, you get two options. One is to set it as a personal default, which updates ~/.cups/lpoptions. If you do that, then applications will detect it as the default.

If you pick the "set as the system-wide default" and also check "clear my personal default setting", applications seem to pick the first printer known to CUPS (the first one ever added) -- certainly not the one I picked to be my default printer.

Doing this twice -- setting the printer as a personal default, then setting it as the system default and deselecting "clear my personal default" seems to get everything working as expected.

However, I do have a /etc/lpoptions which points to the "wrong" default printer (the one I'm seeing in applications). After deleting this file, the default printer is picked up correctly!

[angus73 (angus73)]

The bug also affects me with CUPS 1.5.3 and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Workaround posted by Phil works.

[Laura Conrad (sunny-laymusic)]

Affects me on 14.04LTS. In my case, I can set lpoptions on a per-user basis, but if there's no ~/.cups/lpoptions, although the one printer I have specified is checked as default, and the ooption to set it as default printer is greyed out, if I say "lpstat", it tells me "lpq: Error - no default destination available." If I say "lpstat <printer-name>" I get the status.