Bug#412659: cupsys: number one useability complaint: "my printer has stopped working"
Package: cupsys
Version: 1.1.23-10
Severity: grave
this is an issue that has affected "ordinary" users constantly,
and finally, the last straw: after having to tell THE SAME USER
the SAME THING because they are too stressed to remember i FINALLY
have to report this as a grave useability bug.
the reason why i am reporting it as a grave bug is because the
symptoms are that "the package becomes unuseable" - in order to
get your attention - and i expect you to then consider whether
to downgrade this bug to "wishlist" or whether to leave it as grave,
because it _is_ really important.
the problem is this: silently, USB printers, on a temporary
glitch, the status is set to "Stopped".
absolutely no warning is given.
no flashing lights.
no popups.
cupsys is, after all, a back-end.
in e.g. KDE, a *tiny* bit of advice, which users have to look for, is
given: it's in the "Information" tab of the printer.
this is completely utterly useless.
something like an extra state therefore needs to be added: "detected
temporary failure, going to stop and retry in a bit".
i am serious: this was my _number one_ support phone call for SEVERAL
YEARS. and EVERY TIME i had to explain to them, CHECK THE PRINTER
queue, CHECK THE PRINTER queue, CHECK THE PRINTER queue.
_really_ 8888ing boring.
so.
you need to stop this from happening. provide a notification system
which is a command that can be called to send 'alerts' periodically
to desktops saying 'Printer Error detected: we're going to put this
queue offline NOW'.
_anything_ - absolutely _anything_.
you've assumed that users are bright - but if it's not something that
is done again and again and again and again, then they have no memory
of the things that you taught them _yesterday_ let alone last week.
and this occurs _far_ too infrequently (once a month for example) for
them to remember what to do.
so, whilst this a wishlist item, it's a pretty damn important one, and
that's why i've put it as 'grave'.
l.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.16-1-686
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)
Versions of packages cupsys depends on:
ii adduser 3.101 Add and remove users and groups
ii debconf 1.5.11 Debian configuration management sy
ii libc6 2.3.6-7 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii libcupsimage2 1.1.20final+rc1-10 Common UNIX Printing System(tm) -
ii libcupsys2 [libcupsys 1.2.7-2 Common UNIX Printing System(tm) -
ii libcupsys2-gnutls10 1.1.23-12 Common UNIX Printing System(tm) -
ii libgnutls11 1.0.16-6 GNU TLS library - runtime library
ii libpam0g 0.77-0.se5 Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii libpaper1 1.1.14 Library for handling paper charact
ii libslp1 1.0.11-6 OpenSLP libraries
ii patch 2.5.9-2 Apply a diff file to an original
ii perl-modules 5.8.8-7 Core Perl modules
ii xpdf-utils 3.01-7 Portable Document Format (PDF) sui
ii zlib1g 1:1.2.3-9 compression library - runtime
Versions of packages cupsys recommends:
ii cupsys-client 1.1.20final+rc1-10 Common UNIX Printing System(tm) -
pn gs-esp <none> (no description available)
ii smbclient 3.0.23d-4 a LanManager-like simple client fo
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