This problem is found in Kubuntu under some circumstances and not realy dramatic, however...
In OpenSUSE and probably other distributions, it prevents from changing a printers options, unless logged in as root.

What happens and how to reproduce:

Menu => Configure Desktop => Printers
You are asked for authentication, so type your (root) password. Note: from here, any further ask for authentication is an error by its self!
Select any installed printer, and click its Configure button.
Modify anything (don't care what) and klick OK
Invisible on the background, there is a box asking for root password. (Why!) However, this box will never get the focus and your only option is to cancell

How to modify a printers settings?

If you open the web interface at localhost:631 are you able to configure the printer manually there?

bcooksley wrote:If you open the web interface at localhost:631 are you able to configure the printer manually there?

Yes! That way everything works fine. Thanks.
CU,
Ruud

Okay. Can you provide a screenshot of the non-functional interface complete with password prompt please?

bcooksley wrote:Okay. Can you provide a screenshot of the non-functional interface complete with password prompt please?

In the mean time. I have reported this as bug in SUSE, learning a lot more:

A know bug in KDE:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=328014

screen shot (part of my bug report):
http://bugzillafiles.novell.org/attachm ... ?id=600064

But in fact, the best work around, I did nor know at that time, is using localhost:631
CU
Ruud

Okay. Best you can hope for at this point is the bug being fixed. This functionality must have regressed at some point unfortunately.