printer moved to new location= CUPS cannot find its drivers anymore

[Keith]

On 1/31/22 12:17 PM, Marco Fioretti wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> A couple years ago I bought an EPSON XP-4100 printer/scanner, attached
> it to an USB port of my Ubuntu Desktop and it was detected and worked
> with little or no problems.
>
> Last week, changes in home furniture forced me to move that printer from
> below my desk to the room where the ADSL modem is. So I attached it to
> the USB port of the modem, configured the latter to share the printer on
> the LAN,and the modem said OK, RECOGNIZED that it is an EPSON XP-4100
> and said printer now usable from modem.ip.address:631/printers/printer-name
>
> Then I opened the CUPS server of my desktop, locahost:631, went to "add
> printer", chose ipp (via http) as connectio method, and provided the
> network address above.
>
> The problem is that my when I enter the printer maker to choose the
> driver in my local CUPS, it does NOT list Epson XP-4100 as an available
> driver. Which is not true, because that same CUPS server had been using
> that same printer for 2 years without problems, until I unplugged it and
> attached it to the modem port.
>
> What the hell happened, and how to fix it? I **have** read around how to
> install epson drivers, but why should I do it in the first place? Did
> removing the printer erase its drivers too? If so, why on Earth? Stupid
> move, it would be. And in any case, I downloaded the .deb package from
> the Epson website to reinstall, but could not do it because broken
> dependencies (on Ubuntu 21.04) on the lsb package. This is where I am
> right now. Any step towards a solution, and an explanation or hypothesis
> of what actually happened and why, would be REALLY welcome...
>
> TIA,
> Marco
>
>
FYI, 21.04 reached EOL on Jan. 20, so you're running a release that
won't be getting any more updates.

As for the printer driver issue, do still have the package
"printer-driver-escpr" from the Ubuntu Universe repo installed? That
package contains compressed PPD's for some models of Epson's inkjet
printers including the XP-4100. I don't have an Epson printer, but I did
go in CUPS server admin to change the driver for my Brother laserjet and
selected Epson as the Make and was able to see the XP-4100 as an
available model to select with the printer-driver-escpr package installed.

If its already installed, maybe try to re-install the package (from the
Ubuntu repo, not from Epson's website) and see if it shows up again in
the list of Epson printer models:

$ sudo apt install --reinstall printer-driver-escpr

--
Keith