USB - erratic function, no printing!

Hello,

I'm having difficulty with usb devices, specifically a camera and a printer.

Problem ONE is that they are not always detected. Sometimes everything goes 
fine:

========================================================
ugen0: Eastman Kodak Company KODAK EasyShare DX4530 Zoom Digital Camera, rev 
2.0
0/1.00, addr 3

umass0: EPSON USB2.0 MFP, rev 2.00/1.00, addr 2
ulpt0: EPSON USB2.0 MFP, rev 2.00/1.00, addr 2, iclass 8/6
ulpt0: using bi-directional mode
da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0
da0: <EPSON Stylus Storage 1.00> Removable Direct Access SCSI-2 device
da0: 1.000MB/s transfers
da0: Attempt to query device size failed: NOT READY, Medium not present
(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): READ CAPACITY. CDB: 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): CAM Status: SCSI Status Error
(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI Status: Check Condition
(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): NOT READY asc:3a,0
(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): Medium not present
(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): Unretryable error
Opened disk da0 -> 6
(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): READ CAPACITY. CDB: 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): CAM Status: SCSI Status Error
(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI Status: Check Condition
(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): NOT READY asc:3a,0
(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): Medium not present
(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): Unretryable error
Opened disk da0 -> 6
========================================================

and all the right device nodes are created for the printer - /dev/ulpt0 
and /dev/unlpt0.

Sometimes these messages don't show up, but I get this a few minutes after I 
turn one of them on:

========================================================
uhub0: device problem, disabling port 2
========================================================

I am really not sure what's making the difference, except that it seems never 
to work if either of them is on when the box boots up, or if I turn on the 
printer before the camera... but those are certainly not the full story, and 
I can't pretend to have been exhaustive in testing all the permutations.

Problem TWO is with the printer, a nice new Epson Stylus Photo R300, which 
works beautifully in Windows. In FreeBSD, the camera works fine (with gphoto2 
in the command line) once it's detected. But the printer responds very 
poorly. Doing

su-2.05b# lptest 20 10 > /dev/ulpt0

makes the printer kind of clear its throat, like it's getting ready to do 
something, but changes its mind. At least I know I've got the right node, as 
redirecting to /dev/unlpt0 does nothing at all.

There's a proper driver for this printer, print/pips-spr300_310 and I've 
installed that and followed all the setup instructions, 
configured /etc/printcap with the supplied script...

su-2.05b# lptest 20 10 | lpr -Pspr300_310
su-2.05b# lpq -Pspr300_310

Rank   Owner      Job  Files                                 Total Size
1st    root       0    (standard input)                      210 bytes

But nothing will happen at all, for ever, not even a throat-clearing.

I cvsupped yesterday (2004-10-27, ports and source) -

su-2.05b# uname -a
FreeBSD potato.hogsedge.net 5.3-STABLE FreeBSD 5.3-STABLE #0: Thu Oct 28 
14:12:12 BST 2004     root_at_potato.hogsedge.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/POTATO  
i386

I'd really appreciate help with these.

Thanks a lot,
Ben