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Here is a workaround to Cups errors when adding a network printer. Hopefully a real solution will follow one day.

Using a GUI tool you try to add a printer. You expand the list of network printers and your printer is shown in the the. You select it and and go forward where you can give it a name you like and a location. Then after OK it says:

CUPS server error There was an error during the CUPS operation: 'server-error-internal-error'.

If the reason is a DNS problem here is what to do.

Run the command line ippfind and look at the list:

$ ippfind
ipp://BRWBCF4D44.local:631/ipp/print

Here the printer respond to a broadcast UDP with the message »my DNS name is BRWBCF4D44.local and you can contact me on that« but this is not correct. Try:

$ ping BRWBCF4D44.local
ping: BRWBCF4D44.local: Name or service not known

The problem is that the name BRWBCF4D44.local is not known in the DNS. A quick workaround is to add this entry to your /etc/hosts file:

$ echo 192.168.1.7 BRWBCF4D44.local | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

Then both ping and lpadmin will work.

Try add the printer manually:

$ sudo lpadmin -p My_brother -E -v ipp://BRWBCF4D44.local:631/ipp/print -L Bedroom

If this work you can delete the printer again:

$ sudo lpadmin -x My_brother

Now you can add the printer with the GUI as expected.

For some unknown reason the printer thinks the domain is .local and not .lan. The problem must be in the DNS-server some where.

1 Answer 1

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.local is now a Special-Use DNS domain allocated in RFC 6762 (Section 3) to Multicast DNS (mDNS for short): a peer-to-peer name resolution system intended for small networks with no dedicated name server. More specifically, any two-part domain names ending with top-level domain .local i.e. <hostname>.local should be assumed to be resolvable by mDNS instead of classic DNS.

In Linux, mDNS was first implemented by the Avahi toolkit, and CUPS uses Avahi if it is available. If you don't have avahi-daemon running, it won't be able to cache the information of other devices announcing themselves over mDNS, and so mDNS resolution will work poorly or not at all.

CUPS server error There was an error during the CUPS operation: 'server-error-internal-error'.

This suggests CUPS might be trying to contact avahi-daemon for resolving the mDNS name, but failing... maybe because avahi-daemon is not running, or even not installed?

More recently, systemd-resolved DNS resolver also has optional mDNS capability, but applications like CUPS probably won't have the code to use it automatically yet.

mDNS is one of the building blocks of various zero-configuration network technologies, such as AirPrint and various smart-home technologies. If you have the Avahi tools installed, run avahi-discover(graphical) or avahi-browse -avclrk (text only) to see what services are being announced within any network you're directly connected to.

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