I have an Epson Stylus C82 printer which normally works fine with all printing functions. However, if I run out of paper during printing a file, the printer then prints only garbage characters [ASCII ]. It will keep printing these w/o stopping. I can recover by shutting down and rebooting, but is there another way to recover w/o re-starting? Also, this problem is not only with this printer, the exact same problem happened when I had a Canon S400 connected. Thanks in advance.

If you're using cups, then under - Configuration - Printing - Cups WWW Configuration Tool should allow you to stop the print job. Also, install Mtink - it allows you to dynamically re-set the printer. One of these should sort you out.

Thanks for the prompt reply. I'll try these the next time it happens..or maybe I'll make it do it!

PS: Forgot to mention, turning it off & on does nothing to correct the problem.

Carlywarly:: First off, I installed Mtink. Thanks for the tip. Second, I accessed the CUPS WWW.Configuration tool..I found I could access the close jobs function, but several of the others require a password, etc.? How do I do that? Or is it restricted?

Now the big problem: There's something definitely wrong! Could it be the printer? [Epson StylusC82]. Anyway, when I try to print out of Open Office or KOffice it will not print a file..comes up with either nothing or an error about a blank line input, no error number. BUT, I can do a page print from Mozilla or Netscape when I'm on the web! I also can print out the complete test page perfectly! I'm completely confused. [Note: using CUPS]

Somebody please help!

Also: I changed the printer cable over to USB..that corrected the continuous printout problem of ASCII chearacters. Go figure?

The other cups functions need the root password.

Mmmm. I would suggest the following. Use Mandrake Control Centre to remove the printer. Then, add the printer via the KDE Control Centre instead. See if that sorts it out.

Hey, it worked!!!! Thank you very much. Printing all files fine!

Now here's the latest problem..I can't seem to access the MCC Software install...I get an error:: urpmi database locked. What's this? What caused it? How do I 'unlock' it?

In general, seems the longer Mnk runs the more I'm getting all these funny problems. It's run for months w/o crashing [sure different from MS] . But it reminds me of how MS acted up after months of running until finally I had to re-install. Is there a way to just 'refresh' MNk w/o losing all the installed software, the browser HTML files, adr book files, etc? Or do I need to do this?

Again, thanks for your help.


Re CUPS ... I assume it's a pw from their web site, not my Mnk pw? None of my mnk pw worked.

The locked problem sounds like a lock file hanging on after urpmi has closed. Look in /etc/urpmi and use the option to see hidden files, then look for a *.pid file. If there's one there, delete it - you may need to be root to do that.

Mandrake degrading over time - hasn't happened to me. I've got 3 versions running on different pcs all fine.

Cups - it should be your root password that is needed - it works on my system, and according to the Cups docs,

" To access the printer administration tools open the
following URL in your browser:

http://localhost:631/admin

You will be asked for the administration password (root or any
other user in the sys/system/root group on your system) and then
shown a menu of available functions."

Should work.

Carlywarly:: Thanks for your help again. There were no .pid files in /etc/urpmi. There were a few others scattered around my system, but they wouldn't delete. So, I deleted all the software sources in MCC, and reinstalled from Mnk CD's...or on line sources,.so all seems to be ok now.

Funny about CUPS, nothing I enter gives me access ..I mean as far as passwords. Oh well. Back to the