Look at this:
* ERROR: cupsd failed to start
[flatbush ~]# /etc/init.d/cupsd start
* checkpath: owner `root:cups' not found
* checkpath: owner `root:cups' not found
* checkpath: owner `root:cups' not found
* checkpath: mkdir: No such file or directory
* ERROR: cupsd failed to start
[flatbush ~]#
[flatbush ~]# cat /etc/group|grep cups
[flatbush ~]#
Why would the cups group be removed from the group file?
This happened to me when i migrated to Artix, a lot of groups and users just vanished.
Check if there is pacnew or pacold file and compare it to current one to check what is missing.
PS: Also check cups config files and files rights. (there was a change in cups long time ago, it could be it if you did not used cups for long time)
what is that?
I asume some package removed it. Why is anyones guess.
When pacman is replacing config files most of the times it is set to create backup (filename.pacold)
and "filename.pacnew" when the current configuration should be kepr.
There is soem chance that some package replaced the group file, check if there is "/etc/group.pacold" file.