Checking a queue for jobs and then deleting it leaves a window in between, and the sudo that does the deleting can sit at a password prompt for as long as someone takes to type. A job submitted in that window was cancelled by a deletion that had already decided the queue was empty. cupsreject closes the queue to new work first, which also stops more jobs piling onto one that is being left behind and can no longer route them. It comes from the cups package, which stays.
What a queue with jobs on it means is now said rather than implied: whatever is already at the printer finishes, whatever is still waiting cannot be routed with the daemon gone, and the person who owns them has to cancel what is left.
A queue that another administrator removed while this was running is the outcome wanted, not a failure to keep the package installed for, so a deletion that fails is checked against whether the destination is still there.
Co-Authored-By: Codex XHigh <noreply@openai.com>
