CUPS does not respect error policy and disables printer on error

[Jan Hoffmann]

If the conenction to a printer fails, because it is turned off or there are network problems, the printer is disabled and does not not continue printing until it is manually enabled again. This happens even though the default error policy is set to "retry job" instead of "stop-printer" by an Ubuntu patch. I confirmed in the web interface that the error policy is in fact set to "retry job".

This is a serious problem as novice users won't understand why printing doesn't work because there's no error or status message except the little printer icon that can be very easily overlooked.

I saw this problem on a machine running Lucid with an USB printer and on my own machine running Oneiric with a network printer connected through HPLIP.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: cups 1.5.0-8ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Oct 27 20:30:06 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - amd64 (GNOME Shell Remix)
Lpstat: device for HP-Officejet-Pro-8500-a910: hp:/net/Officejet_Pro_8500_A910?ip=192.168.1.150
MachineType: ECS A780GM-A
Papersize: a4
PpdFiles: HP-Officejet-Pro-8500-a910: HP Officejet Pro 8500 a910, hpcups 3.11.7
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=de:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-12-generic root=UUID=b4b91195-1d73-4db6-bf18-045d76bdfa66 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: cups
UdevDb: Error: [Errno 2] Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 04/14/2010
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 080014
dmi.board.name: A780GM-A
dmi.board.vendor: ECS
dmi.board.version: 1.0
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: ECS
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvr080014:bd04/14/2010:svnECS:pnA780GM-A:pvr1.0:rvnECS:rnA780GM-A:rvr1.0:cvnECS:ct3:cvr:
dmi.product.name: A780GM-A
dmi.product.version: 1.0
dmi.sys.vendor: ECS

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.