cups produces error on attempt to print test page

Binary package hint: cups

Actions taken:
1. point browser to localhost:631
2. select Printers | Manage Printers
3. select the physical printer (as opposed to the Virtual PDF Printer)
4. select Maintenance | Print Self Test Page

Expected: printer issues the well-known CUPS test page
Observed: error message: Unsupported format 'application/vnd.cups-command'!

Background:
I have been upgrading to new Kubuntu versions on this four or five-year old machine ever since I bought it. I have space for three releases at any one time. The home directory is in its own partition and I have always left it intact. I was suffering several small but infuriating functionality problems that drew zero response from several increasingly plaintive postings. I suspected cruft in my "dot files" (configuration files). I did a "bare metal" reinstall of both the OS and my own user partition, copying back only config directories that contained useful data, as opposed to config settings, e.g. ~/.cddb and ~/.thumbnails.

I provide this detail because the previous Lucid Lynx instance on this machine --- as well as the karmic and jaunty releases --- have always printed the CUPS test page uneventfully. It is therefore puzzling to receive this error on the "cleanest" reinstall that I have done in years.

OT: the cruft removal exercise does, however, seem to have resolved the other functionality problems.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Jan 21 03:42:29 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
InstallationMedia: Error: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/var/log/installer/media-info'
Lpstat:
 device for HPLaserJet4L: dnssd://P1._printer._tcp.local/
 device for VirtualPDFPrinter: cups-pdf:/
MachineType: MICRO-STAR INC. MS-6580
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: cups 1.4.2-6
Papersize: letter
PpdFiles:
 HPLaserJet4L: HP LaserJet 4L Foomatic/ljet4 (recommended)
 VirtualPDFPrinter: Generic PostScript Printer Foomatic/Postscript (recommended)
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=//vmlinuz-2.6.32-11-generic root=UUID=d85b8ba0-25f1-4c76-b27f-30e24d3743ec ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-11.15-generic
SourcePackage: cups
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-11-generic i686
dmi.bios.date: 05/19/2003
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: V3.7 0
dmi.board.name: MS-6580
dmi.board.vendor: MICRO-STAR INC.
dmi.board.version: 20A
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: 0123ABC
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Uknown Chassis Manufacture
dmi.chassis.version: Version 1.00
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvrV3.70:bd05/19/2003:svnMICRO-STARINC.:pnMS-6580:pvr20A:rvnMICRO-STARINC.:rnMS-6580:rvr20A:cvnUknownChassisManufacture:ct3:cvrVersion1.00:
dmi.product.name: MS-6580
dmi.product.version: 20A
dmi.sys.vendor: MICRO-STAR INC.