USB Printer Not Detected After QTS 5.0.0.1808 Firmware Update

[mr_salty]

I finally gave up and moved the printer to my pi... Not ideal since I was thinking of using that for another project and I already have the NAS sitting right there, but oh well.

it also occurred to me that running linux in a VM might sidestep whatever the issue with container station is, or maybe not...

[agros]

Same problem here. I would love to see printer support feature back in QTS 5.

I used to print via IPP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_ ... g_Protocol) CUPS directly.

What I did to work around the currently missing printer support is to run the CUPS service as a docker container. I used the olbat/cupsd docker image (https://github.com/olbat/dockerfiles/tree/master/cupsd).

DISCLAIMER
I'm not the guy who created that image nor would I recommend using the workaround for non-private use or in general if you're not familiar with cups or docker. You have to decide whether this is safe and secure to you use on your own in other words: No support, you're doing it on your own risk.

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docker run -d -p 631:631 -v /var/run/dbus:/var/run/dbus --device /dev/bus --device /dev/usb --name cupsd olbat/cupsd

You can now goto <your-qnap>:631 and add your printer manually (password print/print)

In case you did not create the container via container station you need to ensure to enable the auto start toggle for the container in the container station UI. Like that the service will survive a system reboot.

Regards
Das-Korn

Thank you all for all your contributions and valuable tips. THANK YOU!!
Here is a question I have...
I used to have an old HP Laserjet printer attached to my QNAP TS-653B usb port until it stopped working (as you all know). After that I managed to setup CUPS in a Raspberry Pi and everything is works fine. But I wanted to do the same in my QNAP. So I installed CUPS through DOCKER. I can connect to it by its IP port 631. The problem is that the printer does not show as local printer (eventhough it is physically connected to the USB port in the NAS). Am I missing something? Is it anything "special" I have to do to be able to see it?
THANKS!!

[yaroslav83]

Hi guys,
You can just use VirtualHere Server installed on QNAP which will allow USB devices to be used remotely over a network just as if they were locally connected.
https://virtualhere.com/home

[Ommadawn]

I've missed that stuff from the release notes as well. I have a very old Canon MP250 printer which was working just great with the USB Printer stuff from the QNAP device. Now it's gone. Reading through the comments and based on @Das-Kon solution, I did this:

1. Install Container Station on your QNAP device using the QNAP web interface
2. Login via SSH to your QNAP device
3. Create an alias for docker binary since by default, via SSH, docker command is not found:

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alias docker="/share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/container-station/bin/docker"

4. I've used a different image since the olbat/cupsd was not starting stating that it's for amd64 but my QNAP nas cpu is arm64. So you can start your cups docker container like this (it works for all arch types):

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docker run -d -p 631:631 -v /var/run/dbus:/var/run/dbus --device /dev/bus --device /dev/usb -e CUPSADMIN="admin" -e CUPSPASSWORD="yourpassword" --name=cups --net=host tigerj/cups-airprint

Then open a browser, go to http://nas-server-ip:631, authenticate with the credentials configured at the previous step, manually add a printer in cups and share it. Then you'll be able to add that printer as a Network Printer from your computer. Hope it helps!

Doing these steps, when I reboot the NAS... should I have to execute something manually or the container will be launched automatically? If not, how could I do that?
Thanks!