CUPS won't work, nor other printing to xp shared printer

[Shane Hathaway]

Dr. Scott S. Jones wrote:
> I can't help but think that some item which apt-get upgraded has crippled my
> work machine. I open firefox and run 'localhost:631/' and it opens the main
> screen but refuses to add a new printer, or to show jobs. It just grinds
> apache 2 to a halt. I have not done anything with apache, but firefox seems
> to be getting progressively slower on this machine. 
> 
> Suggestions? 

Edit /etc/cups/cupsd.conf, switching the LogLevel to 'debug'.  (IMHO it
should be set this way for all but high traffic printers.)  Restart
cups, then watch /var/log/cups/error_log as you try to print.  It will
probably give you some good hints.

OTOH you may have a more general problem.  Use 'dmesg' to watch for
kernel-level errors.

Another possibility is that you're depending on a flaky DNS server,
which can cause all sorts of network-related badness.  A quick test is
to run your applications while the network interface is disabled
(ifconfig eth0 down|up).  With the interface disabled, DNS queries fail
immediately rather than wait, and the system may become responsive again.

Shane