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At work, where there are dozens of printers on the network, I'm no longer able to open the print dialog (the Gnome/Gtk one opened by firefox, evince, gedit, etc.).

This happened one day with no obvious reason (I don't recall of any update), so I suspect that the problem is due to a change in the network. If I open the dialog without being on the network, it works fine.

Currently, I am using acroread to print my pdf files because its print dialog doesn't crash. The difference is that it does not try to retrieve the list of the network printers so I can use a manually set up printer. lp is also working great.

I am looking for a workaround or a real fix. For instance, a way to make it avoid to retrieve the network printers would be fine.

Maxime
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  • I've seen very similar behavior where I work, too. We never managed to find a solution other than redefine the printer for the affected machines. – Joseph R. Nov 08 '13 at 14:25
  • We've had this problem reported here before too. I seem to recall it was a Q&A that Anthon and I dealt with and the issue was with a config file in the user's home directory. Memory is failing me at the moment, I would search for answers about printing that involve myself and Anthon. – slm Nov 08 '13 at 15:11
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    Thank goodness for search: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/73086/user-data-in-evince-and-cups/73087#73087 – slm Nov 08 '13 at 15:13
  • I thought about changing the value of "Browsing" to "Off" in `/etc/cups/cupsd.conf` but it doesn't help. – Maxime Nov 08 '13 at 15:19

1 Answers1

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Using strace, I noticed that the freeze was caused by an infinite loop that was trying unsuccessfully to communicate with a Mac that is on the network (CUPS port).

I don't know exactly what fixed the problem, but here's what I've done:

  • In the file /etc/cups/cupsd.conf, I've changed the BrowseLocalProtocols to none.
  • I removed avahi-daemon to disable the auto-discovery.
Maxime
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  • Firefox started crashing for me too when enabling a local cups server with a remote cups printer discoverable through avahi. The print dialog flashes - just slow enough to see the remote printer was found. (gedit print dialog works though) – olejorgenb Aug 16 '17 at 23:29