lpadmin: Unable to create PPD file

[JimmyJ]

I've got a script to add printers to new computers. I've tested it on a few machines successfully, however it fails on others. The error occurs when using lpadmin to add a printer:

lpadmin -p office -m everywhere -v "ipps://print.my.domain:9164/printers/office"

Which gives ONE of the following errors, it seems to be random which one I get:

lpadmin: Unable to create PPD file: Undefined error: 0
lpadmin: Unable to create PPD file: Interrupted system call

One of the computers it fails on is a freshly installed version of Big Sur 11.6.

Resetting the printing system through System Preferences doesn't help. Adding printers through System Preferences works correctly.

I can't find any information on these errors anywhere, so anything would help.

Thanks! 

[mateow]

did you ever figure this out? 

[JimmyJ]

In my case it appears that newer versions of lpadmin didn't want to play nice with PaperCut Mobility Print printers. I ended up just ignoring Apple's advice and creating a PPD file first. It gives you a couple of warnings about being deprecated but works on all my devices.

For the above example I'd use something like this instead:

/System/Library/Printers/Libraries/ipp2ppd ipps://print.my.domain:9164/printers/office everywhere > /tmp/office.ppd
lpadmin -p office -v ipps://print.my.domain:9164/printers/office -P /tmp/office.ppd

Hopefully that helps!