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

[Dr. Scott S. Jones]

Shane: 

> > 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. 
 
> 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.

Here's the output from dmesg after changing to LogLevel debug in
cupsd.conf: 

visor ttyUSB1: Handspring Visor / Palm OS converter now disconnected from
ttyUSB
1
visor 1-1:1.0: device disconnected
spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7.
smbfs: Unrecognized mount option noexec
SMB connection re-established (-5)

This last line continues about 12 times, then ends. 

error_log is here: 

I [02/Feb/2007:06:29:13 -0700] Listening to 0:631
I [02/Feb/2007:06:29:13 -0700] Loaded configuration file
"/etc/cups/cupsd.conf"
I [02/Feb/2007:06:29:13 -0700] Configured for up to 100 clients.
I [02/Feb/2007:06:29:13 -0700] Allowing up to 100 client connections per
host.
I [02/Feb/2007:06:29:13 -0700] Full reload is required.
I [02/Feb/2007:06:29:15 -0700] LoadPPDs: Read "/etc/cups/ppds.dat", 3649
PPDs...
I [02/Feb/2007:06:29:17 -0700] LoadPPDs: No new or changed PPDs...
I [02/Feb/2007:06:29:17 -0700] Full reload complete.
I [02/Feb/2007:09:33:11 -0700] Listening to 0:631
D [02/Feb/2007:09:33:11 -0700] AddLocation: added location '/'


Here's the end of error_log: 

I [02/Feb/2007:09:33:13 -0700] LoadPPDs: Read "/etc/cups/ppds.dat", 3649
PPDs...
I [02/Feb/2007:09:33:15 -0700] LoadPPDs: No new or changed PPDs...
D [02/Feb/2007:09:33:15 -0700] LoadAllJobs: Scanning /var/spool/cups...
D [02/Feb/2007:09:33:15 -0700] LoadAllJobs: Loading attributes for job 1...
D [02/Feb/2007:09:33:16 -0700] LoadAllJobs: Auto-typing document file
d00001-001...
I [02/Feb/2007:09:33:16 -0700] Full reload complete.
D [02/Feb/2007:09:33:16 -0700] StartListening: NumListeners=1
D [02/Feb/2007:09:33:16 -0700] StartListening: address=00000000 port=631
D [02/Feb/2007:09:33:16 -0700] ResumeListening: setting input bits...

I am no expert, but I don't see any problems....

Scott