printer paused: filter not avaiable

[Haines Brown]

I upgraded to testing, but had a problem with the testing version
of CUPS, so downgraded CUPS to its stable version.

Can't print because printer is paused. It is paused because
my printer is paused because:

"File "/usr/lib/cups/filter/gstopxl" not available: No such file
or directory"

The problem is that I do have this filter in /usr/lib/cups/filter/

$ ls -la | grep gstopxl
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 558 Aug 19 00:57 gstopxl

I have installed:

i cups -
i A cups-browsed
i cups-bsd
i A cups-client
i A cups-core-drivers
i A cups-daemon
i A cups-filters
i A cups-filters-core-driver
i A cups-ipp-utils
i A cups-pk-helpe
i A cups-ppdc
i A cups-server-common
i A libcups2t64
i A libcupsfilters1t64
p printer-driver-cups-pdf:i386
i A python3-cups
i A libcupsfilters1t64
i A python3-cupshelpers
i A libcupsfilters1t64
c printer-driver-cups-pdf
i A python3-cups
i A python3

It looks like the printer-driver-cups-pdf package is not installed,
but I dont see how that could force the printer to pause. be the

[Michael Kjörling]

Post by Haines Brown
I upgraded to testing, but had a problem with the testing version
of CUPS, so downgraded CUPS to its stable version.

How, _exactly_, did you perform that downgrade?

In effect, it sounds like what you have now is a mix of Bookworm and
Trixie. (More generally, a mix of Stable and Testing.) That is an
unsupported and not-recommended configuration which can lead to any
number of issues.

https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian#Don.27t_make_a_FrankenDebian

Your best bet _might_ be to upgrade back to Testing, and then roll
forward with that and either see if there's a fix, or submit a bug
report to the package maintainers through the Debian bug tracker.

In the specific case of the current situation, I wouldn't be the least
bit surprised if the time_t 64-bit (see those "t64" in the package
list?) transition is causing problems for you, but there's no way to
tell for sure based on your post because you don't include any logs,
nor any package version numbers or other identifying details, nor any
details on your configuration. Running `ldd` on the problematic binary
and showing the output of that might also prove instructive.

[Haines Brown]

Post by Michael Kjörling

Post by Haines Brown
I upgraded to testing, but had a problem with the testing version
of CUPS, so downgraded CUPS to its stable version.

How, _exactly_, did you perform that downgrade?
In effect, it sounds like what you have now is a mix of Bookworm and
Trixie. (More generally, a mix of Stable and Testing.) That is an
unsupported and not-recommended configuration which can lead to any
number of issues.
https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian#Don.27t_make_a_FrankenDebian

Worse that that!c I inadvertantly upgraded from stable to testing! The
problem not CUPS but having to downgrade back to stable.

This is a challenge, and I know my best bet would simply be to back
up everything and install the stable release on a new new drive. Or I could install
stable on an external HD, clean the principle disk and then
re install stable to it. But thñere are a couple of reasons this must
be a last resort. I'll first try the usual procedure to downgrade,
despite all its challenges.

[Hans]

Hi,
just an idea: take a look at /var/log/cups/errors.log. Had the same problem,
here it was a missing lib. The log file might tell you more.

Hope this helps.

Best

Hans

[Charles Curley]

On Tue, 27 Aug 2024 14:06:48 -0400

Post by Haines Brown
I upgraded to testing, but had a problem with the testing version
of CUPS, so downgraded CUPS to its stable version.
Can't print because printer is paused. It is paused because
"File "/usr/lib/cups/filter/gstopxl" not available: No such file
or directory"
The problem is that I do have this filter in /usr/lib/cups/filter/
$ ls -la | grep gstopxl
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 558 Aug 19 00:57 gstopxl
i cups -
i A cups-browsed
i cups-bsd
i A cups-client
i A cups-core-drivers
i A cups-daemon
i A cups-filters
i A cups-filters-core-driver
i A cups-ipp-utils
i A cups-pk-helpe
i A cups-ppdc
i A cups-server-common
i A libcups2t64
i A libcupsfilters1t64
p printer-driver-cups-pdf:i386
i A python3-cups
i A libcupsfilters1t64
i A python3-cupshelpers
i A libcupsfilters1t64
c printer-driver-cups-pdf
i A python3-cups
i A python3
It looks like the printer-driver-cups-pdf package is not installed,
but I dont see how that could force the printer to pause. be the

I see:

***@hawk:~# apt-file search gstopxl
cups-filters: /usr/lib/cups/filter/gstopxl
***@hawk:~# ls -l $( locate gstopxl )
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 558 May 19 2023 /usr/lib/cups/filter/gstopxl
***@hawk:~#

So gstopxl is from the package cups-filters, which you have installed.
Your listing agrees with mine as to the permissions, ownership, and
length of the file but not the date. I conjectured that that is the date
of installation, or, in my case, upgrade.

Mine is from Bookworm.