Cups trouble shooter asked me to run a command that doesn't work

[david braun]

The Cups trouble shooter claimed it couldn't find log files saying it was possible the it wasn't running as an administrator (which was correct). It asked me to run
   su -c 'journalctl -u cups.service --since="None" --until="2016-09-27 18:17:05"' > troubleshoot-logs.txt
which failed for 2 reasons
1. I don't know the cups.service password (so I ran the command as root)
2. the None specification for "--since" is not valid

Also the cups logs showed that cups couldn't create /var/spool/cups/tmp/.hplip but didn't say what caused the failure (turns out it already existed - shouldn't be an error!)

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: cups 2.1.3-4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-38.57-generic 4.4.19
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-38-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.1
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Tue Sep 27 18:41:10 2016
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-05-31 (485 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20150218.1)
Lsusb:
 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
 Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0bda:57b5 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
 Bus 001 Device 005: ID 03f0:0317 Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 1200
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
MachineType: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. X551MA
Papersize: letter
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.4.0-38-generic.efi.signed root=UUID=dadede94-9cd3-484a-963a-db3e27379a9b ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: cups
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to xenial on 2016-08-04 (54 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 08/12/2014
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: X551MA.512
dmi.board.asset.tag: ATN12345678901234567
dmi.board.name: X551MA
dmi.board.vendor: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
dmi.board.version: 1.0
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Tag
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
dmi.chassis.version: 1.0
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvrX551MA.512:bd08/12/2014:svnASUSTeKCOMPUTERINC.:pnX551MA:pvr1.0:rvnASUSTeKCOMPUTERINC.:rnX551MA:rvr1.0:cvnASUSTeKCOMPUTERINC.:ct10:cvr1.0:
dmi.product.name: X551MA
dmi.product.version: 1.0
dmi.sys.vendor: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.

[gf (gf-interlinks-deactivatedaccount)]

Hello David,
Thank you for submitting this bug and reporting a problem with cups. You made this bug report some time ago and Ubuntu has been updated since then.

Could you confirm that this is no longer a problem and that we can close the ticket?
If it is still a problem, are you still interested in finding a solution to this bug?
If you are, could you let us know, and in the current version, run the following (only once):
apport-collect BUGNUMBER
and upload the updated logs and and any other logs that are relevant for this particular issue.

Thank you again for helping make Ubuntu better.
G
[Ubuntu Bug Squad volunteer triager]

[david braun (braunster)]

Hi gf,
Nope - can't help. I no longer run Ubuntu 16 and there's no user "journalctl" on my system. Sorry

[david braun (braunster)]

ok - I tried the command (su -c 'journalctl -u cups.service --since="None" --until="2016-09-27 18:17:05"' > troubleshoot-logs.txt) on my current system (Ubuntu 18.04.1). I think I ran into the same problem. The "su" command doesn't tell me who's password it's asking for - turns out it's the superuser password. On my systems there is no superuser password so that command (su) is doomed to fail regardless. Cups needs to be updated at least for Ubuntu. Typically Ubuntu configures the initial user in the sudoers file so someone at least can become the super user. The command to do that is "sudo". Also becoming the super user doesn't seem to be necessary. I executed "journalctl -u cups.service" and it worked fine. Lastly journalctl couldn't parse "None" or "none" as a time indicator.

[gf (gf-interlinks-deactivatedaccount)]

Thanks for the update, David. I will close the report now.
Have a great day!
:)
G

Closed per reporter’s feedback.