Comment 97 for bug 35638

The problem is, HP Laserjets do NOT have the capability of sending the
correct signal to cups via the usb connection. That is why M$ makes YOU pick
the USB to start with. The HP Laserjets are so old and so few are still in
use that why bother. The problem lies with the early HP Laserjets not having
the capability to announce itself.
Someone must pressure the Cups team to let the Linux user send to signal to
the Laserjet, if you can get that done fine. I just don't think there is
such a need in todays market to do it.

I'm going to try Bluetooth, If that does not work will get a newer printer.
There are switch boxes that you can get for Parallel Centronics cables to
connect to more then one printer. I've seen some of them with 6 switches,
just turn the switch to the printer.

Good luck, It will be interesting to see if you can get the Cups to make the
change at this late.

On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 10:13 AM, dracon <email address hidden> wrote:

> Thanks, but I have the parallel port reserved and have used these
> printers several years on Windoze with this connection....need to use
> them via the usb cables and it allows easy unplug and attach to my
> laptop. Also problem is obviously not electrical since Windoze correctly
> senses and accesses the printers.
>
> Also am beginning to think this problem is not a CUPs problem but a HAL
> problem.
> When the printers are shown available, hal has correctly found both. When
> the HP4 is dropped (can happen to the 890c but infrequently) hal only shows
> the cable but not the attached usb device.
>
> If hal finds the HP4 it is listed as an "unknown" device on usb 1, which
> still lets me configure it properly. On reboot, if hal finds the
> "unknown" printer (HP4) on another usb port, cups reroutes the pended
> print jobs to it (cups finds the printer "unknown" and uses the correct
> driver to print a pended document).
>
> hal-device-manager displays the parallel to usb cable correctly and
> printer as "unknown usb" when it finds it.
> When it does not find it, it displays the cable correctly but no "usb
> unknown".
>
> Suspect this could be a timing problem within hal, occasionally not
> receiving a signal back from the 'unknown' printer a startup within the
> expected time during device identification. Timing differences withing
> the devices themselves could account for the differences in how
> frequently they are dropped.
>
> Is there a way to slow the hal startup or cycle process, or re run hal
> after the system is stable to rebuild the tables ,or even force a device
> into hal's table? (are there any control parameters for hal that can be
> user set or forced?)
>
> --
> Printer is not detected properly over USB
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/35638
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