What Causes My Printer to Disappear From Printing Menu?

[Snort McDork]

When I hit "Control P" to bring up printer, there is a box on right that has name of my printer (canon, model number, blah blah). I don't know why I have 3 listings of one printer in dialog box, but they are there. I would like to delete the other un-necessary listings so I have just one. One printer listing has above info, but also says "USB" to indicate a USB connection. This listing works because I have USB connection to printer. I have normally gone to that link to initiate print job. One of the others does not work because it does not recognize the printer (which may say "Canon 2700 series 2 blah blah blah" and won't initiate print job. But twice now, the listing with "USB" does not appear in dialog box. I go to print and the link I need to highlight is not there. It's not even there in available printers box. I have to go through this frustrating process of checking connections, and rebooting the entire system to get it to appear so I can print. Connection to printer is fine. I've even gone through trouble-shooting a couple of times with no luck. Does anyone know why or what is causing this? I'm on Cinnamon 21. Looked through other threads, but no similar issue. Your thoughts are welcome.

 

[Brickwizard]

I do not often get printer problems, but when I do [and its usually multiple installation of the same printer] I go to the print manager, highlight all versions of the offending printer and delete them, then close the print manager switch on the USB printer and plug it in to self install now that is for simple problems,
There is a scenario where you may have a wireless/USB/networked printer, if you have set it up for 2 or more options then both would normally show in your printer selector of the relevant print application

 

[Larrysmith09]

I had the same issues, so I totally understand how frustrating it is! So many Multiple printers might appear when different drivers or connection types (such as network versus USB) are recognized differently. The duplicate printers can probably be removed from Settings > Printers. Your computer may not be properly picking up your USB connection each and every time if the USB option is missing. It might be a very good idea to reinstall the printer driver or else you can update your USB drivers. After that, it may be worthwhile to check your system logs as soon as the printer disappears if it doesn't help. Maybe that will give some another insight into what's going on.