Using a brand new installation of Linux Mint 17.1, I've been trying to connect my workstation to the shared printers on my server. The workstation is using CUPS 7.2 and the server (Debian Wheezy) is using CUPS 15.3.
Here's the problem. The list of printers is "flapping" -- it rearranges itself a couple times a second in my workstation print dialogs. They look stable if I look at them in the CUPS web interface. I've managed to isolate the printer list to just the printers installed on the server (when I started I was getting every printer attached to every computer on campus). I've put the following lines in my cups-browsed.conf
file:
BrowseAllow servername
BrowsePoll servername:631
CreateIPPPrinterQueues No
What it looks like is happening is that one or more of the printers in the list is vanishing and re-appearing several times a second. The good news is that I'm only getting my printers.
Edit: more information on the installed printers on the server. There are 17 print queues on the server, and all but one are connected via JetDirect sockets. That is the only printer that is not an HP (it's a Xerox.) As near as I can tell, the one that is doing the most visible flapping is an HP Color Laserjet CP4020, and it has a raw queue, but the black and white printer I'm trying to use is also intermittently available. It's not popping in and out of the printer dialog, but once selected it spends a lot of time "waiting for the printer to become available." Print jobs finish, but not quickly.
Older versions of CUPS seemed to be better behaved, but that's not what I've got now. What changes can I make to the workstation (or the server) to fix this?