SOLVED Installing printer: "unable to connect to CIFS host"

[Jodie]

Hi!

I'm a linux newbie, so speak slooowly!

I'm using linux mint 11 (katya). I have winxp on another laptop that has an epson stylus cx4800 attached. I have a wireless network setup which works fine. I can see the other computer in the Network folder.

I used control centre>printing>add>network printer>find network printer. I entered the other computer's name (maverick) and searched. It asks me to login so I do with my username (I have the same user on each puter, domain (workgroup) and pass). It comes up with smb://maverick/EpsonStylusCX4800. I choose "prompt user for authentication if required". It searches for drivers...there are 2 for my printer...I choose the recommended one. It asks for printer description, I leave it as it is. Click print test page and then after a moment of "processing" I get...

Processing-Unable to connect to CIFS host, will retry in 60 seconds...

It tries 3 times and then goes idle.

What to do? Epson sends you to a third party site for linux drivers and there isn't one for my particular model.

Thanks for your time,
Jodie

[bananas4370]

Instead of

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smb://maverick/EpsonStylusCX4800

try with the IP address of the XP machine.

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smb://192.168.1.0/EpsonStylusCX4800

Replace 192.168.1.0 with the XP IP address. See if that works for you.

Cheers
Patrick

[Jodie]

Did not work.

[altair4]

Did you set up the printer on WinXP to require a username and password or was this printer set up to be available to anyone of the LAN? If it's set up to require a username and password you may have to override the setting in the Mint client:

[1] Make a copy of the following file - just in case:

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sudo cp -a /etc/cups/printers.conf /etc/cups/printers.conf.bak

[2] Turn off cups:

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sudo service cups stop

[3] Edit the file as root:

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gksu gedit /etc/cups/printers.conf

[4] Change the DeviceURI line from something like this:

DeviceURI smb://192.168.1.0/EpsonStylusCX4800

To something like this:

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DeviceURI smb://jodi:jodispassword@192.168.1.0/EpsonStylusCX4800

[5] Start cups

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sudo service cups start

[bsorrows]

I had same problem and after a bunch of time spent trying to fix it this is what I found. I have a Brother HL-1440 printer that worked perfectly in Mint 9 and 10. However when I attempted to install it in Mint 11 I kept getting this same error message. I noticed that when I used the find printer on network it found it, however under the settings menu for the printer properties Mint had inserted this name: Brother20HL-1440. When I checked under windows for the shared name it was: Brother HL-1440. When I corrected the name the printer state immediately went to idle and now works like a charm. Some one had wrote in the forms that Mint had difficulty with names and apparently this was the case. I hope this might help some!
Cheers,
Bruce

[Jodie]

OH MY GOD! YOU ROCK!

I went to the xp machine and changed the printer name to EpsonStylusCX4800 (it previously had spaces) and made sure the name on the linux machine was the same (tried doing it the other way around but linux wouldn't accept spaces) and VOILA!

Thanks sooo much!

Jodie

...now I'll tackle the wireless internet problem...

[bsorrows]

OH MY GOD! YOU ROCK!

I went to the xp machine and changed the printer name to EpsonStylusCX4800 (it previously had spaces) and made sure the name on the linux machine was the same (tried doing it the other way around but linux wouldn't accept spaces) and VOILA!

Thanks sooo much!

Jodie

...now I'll tackle the wireless internet problem...

No problem glad it worked for you. You can change the name in Mint after you install the driver. Its on the same page that has the "Print Test Page" button. I also had problems with my wireless and not have it up and running as well. Please mark this thread as "solved" by inserting that in the subject line!
Cheers,
Bruce

[altair4]

@bsorrows, When I read your fix I thought you made a typo:

I noticed that when I used the find printer on network it found it, however under the settings menu for the printer properties Mint had inserted this name: Brother20HL-1440.

As you know a "20" is not the correct way to indicate a space in Linux it should have been a "%20" as in:

Brother%20HL-1440

I did a search on Ubuntu's launchpad and there is a bug report for the system-config-printers utility and it has been fixed although it isn't in the repositories yet:
Applet wrongly replaces space in Samba share URI : https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/747400

Binary package hint: system-config-printer

When I have printer available as a samba share, and the name of this printer has space (eg. "HP 1018"), after finding it in share browser, aplet wrongly replate space to "20" (instead to "%20" afaik), and printer is no accesible.

When I try to add % to uri by myself it's not possible using aplet, but when I have add this char directly in /etc/cups/printers.conf printer start to work.

package version: 1.3.1+20110222-0ubuntu12
Ubuntu version: 11.04

For those of you who cannot implement bsorrows' fix because you don't own the machine that the printer is on you might want to try editing printers.conf directly and replace the 20 with a %20.

@bsorrows, How long did it take you to find this? I don't think I would have ever found it.

[bsorrows]

@bsorrows, How long did it take you to find this? I don't think I would have ever found it.

@altair4: It took me a couple of days on and off to fix this issue. I finally replace Mint 10 with Mint 11 on my notebook and noticed that I couldn't get the printer to work, even though it had worked flawlessly on Mint 10. My wife notebook is still running Mint 9 perfectly. I got so disgusted that I completely remove Mint from my notebook and used XP. I loaded up the live Mint 11 dvd and tried again to get printer working and got the brainstorm to check the settings on my wife's computer and noticed the difference in the name. I am not a guru of any sort, but I knew that if Mint 9 and 10 worked, there just had to be something wrong with 11. If this had not of worked I would have reinstalled Mint 10 back on my laptop .
Cheers,
Bruce