Odd printer problem

[Rodolfo Medina <rodolfo.medina@gmail.com>]

I'm facing the following odd problem:

when I do: `escputil -c' to clean the printer's heads, the output looks good:

$ escputil -c -r /dev/usb/lp0
Escputil version 5.0.2, Copyright (C) 2000-2006 Robert Krawitz
Escputil comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type 'escputil -l'
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; type 'escputil -l' for details.

Cleaning heads...


, but then nothing happens and the heads are not cleaned.  I suspect this
happens because the ink is short and the system is waiting for it to finish
completely.  But then I have the following problem:

1) until the ink is not finished, I can't clean heads;

2) until the heads are not cleaned, the paper is left blank and so the ink is
   not used up and cannot finish.

What to do in this case?  From cups mailing list I got no indications.

Thanks for any help.

Rodolfo