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[Steffen Neumann <1050422@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

I can confirm the hanging on both a laptop running 14.04 and a freshly installed 14.04,
the cups client is on a Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS running cups 1.4.3-1ubuntu1.13

But in our case the cups server IS perfectly accessible with ping, 
and nmap shows an open port 631/tcp  open  ipp 

Removing ServerName fixes the hanging.

Can I do other checks to see where e.g. lpq hang ?

Yours,
Steffen

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1050422

Title:
  CUPS hangs when remote CUPS server defined in client.conf is
  inaccessible

Status in cups package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  When a remote CUPS server is defined in /etc/cups/client.conf like
  this:

  ServerName print.mpia-hd.mpg.de

  and the server is not accessible (e.g., it is on a company's internal
  net and you take your laptop home), then CUPS applications hang for up
  to several minutes, and then timeout.  The gnome printing dialog, for
  example, hangs Firefox and Chromium, and the lpr, lpq, lpoptions,
  lpstat, etc. programs also hang and then error out.  The localhost:631
  interface does NOT hang, and in fact can print test pages on locally
  accessible printers.

  Note that this problem only affects remote SERVERS, not individual
  remote printers that are inaccessible.  Those do not cause a problem.

  Expected behavior: missing printers of any sort should not hang
  programs for any reason.  A short delay of a few seconds is ok.

  Description:	Ubuntu 11.10
  Release:	11.10

  cups:
    Installed: 1.5.0-8ubuntu6
    Candidate: 1.5.0-8ubuntu6
    Version table:
   *** 1.5.0-8ubuntu6 0
          500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric-updates/main amd64 Packages
          100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
       1.5.0-8 0
          500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric/main amd64 Packages

  The server cited above serves 72 printers, and timeouts ranged from 3
  minutes, 9 seconds, to 6 minutes, 19 seconds (I believe but I am not
  certain that in the longer case, the default printer was on the
  missing server). It does not matter whether the default printer is one
  of the missing ones or not, you get a long timeout either way (the
  duration may matter, as noted above).  If you want to change the
  default printer with lpoptions, you can't, because it hangs, times
  out, and quits. If you know the printer you want to print to and say
  lpr -P foo bar.pdf, it still hangs.

  Removing the client.conf file and restarting CUPS fixes the problem
  immediately. So, a workaround is to manually create and remove that
  file every time you enter/leave the network with the print server.
  This is not a viable workaround for most normal users.

  SPECULATION:
  The timeout may depend on how many printers were served on the missing server, and most servers don't have that many.

  I very much hope this will be fixed! There do appear to be others
  experiencing this, but there is little clarity on the web about it
  (some scattered complaints but few solutions that are practical).

  Possibly related:
  Note that there is a related bug #264333.  It is old and didn't get much response.  It may or may not be the same problem.  Some there reported it fixed long ago, but others said they still had a problem.
  http://askubuntu.com/questions/16726/cant-print-cups-package-corrupted-and-hangs-on-re-install
  http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-878487-start-0.html

  Thanks,

  --jh--

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