Comment 44 for bug 1020048

After reading comment #41 and compare the precise version of cups with upstream HEAD, I was able to (re-) build the prceise package with the following patch:

Index: cups-1.5.3/cups/request.c
===================================================================
--- cups-1.5.3.orig/cups/request.c 2011-09-22 00:09:29.000000000 +0200
+++ cups-1.5.3/cups/request.c 2013-08-27 18:23:35.000000000 +0200
@@ -643,11 +643,13 @@
   }
   else if (http->state != HTTP_WAITING)
   {
- DEBUG_printf(("1cupsSendRequest: Unknown HTTP state (%d), bailing.",
- http->state));
- _cupsSetError(IPP_INTERNAL_ERROR, strerror(EINVAL), 0);
-
- return (HTTP_ERROR);
+ DEBUG_printf(("1cupsSendRequest: Unknown HTTP state (%d), "
+ "reconnecting.", http->state));
+ if (httpReconnect(http))
+ {
+ _cupsSetError(IPP_INTERNAL_ERROR, strerror(EINVAL), 0);
+ return (HTTP_ERROR);
+ }
   }

 #ifdef HAVE_SSL
@@ -1004,6 +1006,26 @@
       httpClose(cg->http);
       cg->http = NULL;
     }
+ else
+ {
+ /*
+ * Same server, see if the connection is still established...
+ */
+
+ char ch; /* Connection check byte */
+ int n;
+
+ if ( (n = recv(cg->http->fd, &ch, 1, MSG_PEEK | MSG_DONTWAIT) == 0) ||
+ ( n < 0 && errno != EWOULDBLOCK ) )
+ {
+ /*
+ * Nope, close the connection...
+ */
+
+ httpClose(cg->http);
+ cg->http = NULL;
+ }
+ }
   }

  /*

This solved the reconnect issue for us.