When my printer fails to print with only "printer error" as the message, how can I find details?

Posted by lavinio on Super User See other posts from Super User or by lavinio
Published on 2010-03-26T13:00:31Z Indexed on 2010/03/26 13:03 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 371

Filed under:

printer

|

hp

|

laserjet

|

error

Setup:

Dell Latitude D620 in the docking station
HP color laserjet 2550L
Parallel cable

Sometimes when I undock (and I do suspend before undocking and docking), when I reattach, the printer will not print. It simply says "error", with no description.

Killing and restarting the spooler will not help, but rebooting will.

There is nothing in the system event logs, nor does the print spooler window provide any details other than "error"

My question is, when there is an error, is there any way to find out what is causing it to get stuck, so that I can "unstuck" it instead of rebooting?

© Super User or respective owner

Related posts about printer

Share a Printer on Your Network from Vista or XP to Windows 7

as seen on How to geek - Search for 'How to geek'
The other day we looked at sharing a printer between Windows 7 machines, but you may only have one Windows 7 machine and the printer is connected to a Vista or XP computer. Today we show you how to share a printer from either Vista or XP to Windows 7. We previously showed you how to share files and… >>> More
Share a Printer on Your Network from Vista or XP to Windows 7

as seen on How to geek - Search for 'How to geek'
The other day we looked at sharing a printer between Windows 7 machines, but you may only have one Windows 7 machine and the printer is connected to a Vista or XP computer. Today we show you how to share a printer from either Vista or XP to Windows 7. We previously showed you how to share files and… >>> More
Printer sharing problem (win7 / WinXP): Canon pixma USB printer

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
For a friend, I am trying to share a USB Canon pixma ip3000 printer between two computers in his home network. But I can't get it to work due tot a Canon driver problem. The printer is connected to the Windows 7 (64 bit) computer, and we would like to be able to print from a Windows XP computer.… >>> More
Network Printer or Share Printer on Server?

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Hi, Small office, <10 users. USB printer which also has a network port. Is it better to share the printer by plugging the usb into the sevrer, and do a windows share, or use the built in network port? We are using the built in network port at the moment, but don't have control to delete jobs… >>> More
mysql query using jdbc

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi all, I need to retrieve the last 20 values from my database.For example I have the following table Service_ID Service_Type consumer_feedback | 36 | Printer | 0 | | 36 | Printer | 1 | | 36 | Printer | … >>> More

Related posts about hp

/usr/lib/cups/backend/hp has failed with an HP LaserJet p3005

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
Ever since 10.04, I can't print to an HP laserjet p3005. I'm even using an entirely different computer now with a fresh install of 10.10. I've tried with and without the latest hplip. Recently, sometimes I can get it to print a few things, but eventually it always fails (usually when printing a… >>> More
/usr/lib/cups/backend/hp has failed with an HP LaserJet p3005

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
Ever since 10.04, I can't print to an HP laserjet p3005. I'm even using an entirely different computer now with a fresh install of 10.10. I've tried with and without the latest hplip. Recently, sometimes I can get it to print a few things, but eventually it always fails (usually when printing a… >>> More
HP PDX Laptop and blu-ray region, HP MediaSmart problem

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have a laptop here, a HP HDX 16 EO1000 with a Blu-Ray drive. Installed on the machine is a software package called HP MediaSmart, which presumably can play Blu-Ray movies. However, when inserting a BD disk and starting HP MediaSmart, it comes up with a warning screen and the following message: … >>> More
Ubuntu 14.04:LTS , HPLIP loses USB connection to HP laserjet

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
This is my first post, so please let me know if i have inadvertanly broken any rules. Problem There seems to be a problem with HPLIP and USB connections in ubuntu 14.04LTS. After upgrading i managed to get the printing to work but today it has broken. Initial Issue (Solved) After upgrading to… >>> More
Getting hp-snmp-agents on HP ProLiant DL360 on Lenny working

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
After receiving our HP ProLiant DL360 I'd like to integrate the machine into our Munin system and thus enable ProLiant specific information to be exposed via SNMP. I'm running Debian Lenny with kernel 2.6.26-2-vserver-amd64 . I've followed http://downloads.linux.hp.com/SDR/getting_started.html and… >>> More