topic Re: Slow Printing in Operating System - HP-UX

Slow Printing

Pete Randall — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 07:22:40 GMT

A recent upgrade of our Netware file server has changed the way print queues are defined. It is my understanding that there are no queues any longer and Netware simply funnels the job directly to the network attached printer without any interference.

We have one particular print job, duplexed, with graphic images on the back (cow pictures, actually), that is now taking forever to print. It seems to start printing at a reasonable rate, but then starts to slow down, pause, resume, pause, resume, etc. Based on the theory that Netware used to provide some queueing that we are not getting the benefit of now, we added memory to the printers and have seen some improvement, but it's still not as good as it used to be.

I have tried defining these queues as network printers with pretty much the same results. At the moment, they're defined as remote printers because I want to debug from a known starting point.

So, any suggestions? Do we keep throwing more memory at these printers? How much is a reasonable amount of memory to have in them (they're HP8100DN's, by the way). Is there anything that could be done to the print job itself to improve things?

Pete

Re: Slow Printing

Bryan D. Quinn — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 08:09:52 GMT

Hey Pete,

Are you sure there is not some kind of network bottleneck going on? That sounds suspiciously similar to a network issue I am fighting right now. Although I must say that I have not had any printing complaints, but then again we do not have any really big print jobs going across the network.

Just a thought.

-Bryan

Re: Slow Printing

Pete Randall — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 08:32:23 GMT

Bryan,

Thanks for the thought. I can't see how it could be the network, though. The network is exactly the same (other than the upgraded Netware file server that lives on it). We saw no network bottlenecks before and we see no network bottlenecks now.

All,

One additional item. I'm not sure whether this might be a cause or an effect, but I'm curious about it. We get messages, starting around the time of the slowdown (I think), that say "lp: cannot create temp file dfA475yukon". The 475 portion changes with each message occurence and the yukon is the hostname. Any guesses where and why this file can't be created?

Pete

Re: Slow Printing

Steven E. Protter — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 08:40:52 GMT

I think we have our key Pete:

lp: cannot create temp file dfA475yukon

Where does this get created? /var

We have some big massive print jobs with graphics(no cows) that can cause similar issues with us. I hav /var pretty liberally defined but when someone does a 36,000 page job with graphics, /var get up in the low 80% range, and temporory spools and logs start to slow down, even on a rp5450.

I'd say /var is getting full of spool files and the attempt to create another is file.

Try running the print job through a box with a larger /var filesystem and seee if there is a performance improvment. Or simply watch the syslog and /var space during one of these BUFCJ

Big
Ugly
Fat
Cow
Jobs

Cheers,

Steven

Re: Slow Printing

Pete Randall — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 08:45:31 GMT

SEP,

Nice try, but there's a couple of flaws with that theory. First, and free space, of /var has not changed. Second, there would be a message (in dmesg) if it had filled.

I don't think that's it.

Pete

Re: Slow Printing

Steven E. Protter — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 08:50:32 GMT

Ours gets near filled, so there is no message just a slow down.

I think the message is the key.

file can't be created.

Not enough room.
No permissions.
Directory does not exist.

Netware stopped queueing and now your box has to. Thats got to be a factor.

I have to get organized and get to work. I'll think about it on the train.

SEP

Re: Slow Printing

Pete Randall — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 08:57:07 GMT

SEP,

That should have said "First size, and free space, of /var have not changed".

My /var is 12GB and generally has 6GB free. I intend to try and catch it during one of these errors to see if I can figure anything out, but I have a real hard time believing that a print job is filling some 6GB of /var!

Pete

Re: Slow Printing

Pete Randall — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 08:59:03 GMT

Make that "neither size nor free space of /var have changed".

Pete

Re: Slow Printing

Patrick Wallek — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 10:26:06 GMT

Hey Pete,

Check out TKB doc id: A3137254. It is old (HP-UX 8! and references /usr/spool rather than /var/spool) but there's a slim chance it might apply.

I know this doesn't help much, but an LP error message document (Doc id: HPUXERR03) shows:

cannot create temp file xx.

Unable to create a temp file when copying to the request directory.

Maybe the lp is trying to use the same temp file name and is having trouble copying over one that is already there?

Re: Slow Printing

Pete Randall — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 10:59:05 GMT

Patrick,

Thanks for digging that nugget out!!

I'll have to see if I can catch it in the act to determine what it's doing. The TKB doc's solution of making sure there's no leftover requests doesn't seem to apply here, though. We'll see.

Pete

Re: Slow Printing

Jeff Schussele — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 11:32:50 GMT

Pete,

LP spools the actual requests in /var/spool/lp/request/ptr_name
Dir also holds the .sendingstatus file - the actual status the remote/network printer at the time as well as the .remotesending file - which I believe is a job status file.

Check this dir & those files - especially the .remotesending file while the job is printing.

Rgds,
Jeff

Re: Slow Printing

Pete Randall — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 11:40:27 GMT

Thanks, Jeff, that's what I hope to be able to do. I've got to catch it in the act. The problem is that it seems to take up to 1200 or so pages before the problem starts. In order to keep things "moo"ving here, they've been running smaller, more frequent batches of 600 or so. We're going to let things accumulate tomorrow morning so I can babysit a BIG batch and we'll see what we see there.

Pete

Re: Slow Printing

Jeff Schussele — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 11:48:52 GMT

Pete,

Yep sounds like a plan...

As to the file name - I'm fairly certain that's going to be the actual spool request name in that dir. I believe the d stands for data, fa I'm not sure about, the 475 should be the sequence # (Check the /var/spool/lp/seqfile to verify), and the hostname is obvious.

I'm wondering whether lp "sees" a problem with the job or printer (like a connection dropped to the printer) and is trying to respool the job from the start and in fact the job is OK & still running so the spool file is still there & *that's* the msg. It can't create the spool file *because* it's already there.
Just a guess....

That's why you should check those status files for bogus status as well as the spool file name.

Good Hunting,
Jeff

Re: Slow Printing

Jeff Schussele — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 12:01:17 GMT

And a couple other things...

What is the printer's NIC connected to? A switch or hub port? If it's a switch or an intelligent hub, then check the link type. It's possible that it's at 10HD & you're getting a lot of collisions & retrans that might be causing a status change & the job IS actually respooling. And if the ptr's NIC & it's link partner - the port - are capable of 100FD, then get them to that connection type.

You should be able to telnet to the ptr & check the link type, I think, & even set it.

Rgds,
Jeff

Re: Slow Printing

Jay Bollyn — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 12:40:49 GMT

Pete,

I saw the pause-between-pages on our 8100 and 8150 LJs. I'm not sure what fixed it, because we changed several things at about the same time. We use Novell NDPS.

I suggest make sure your JetDirect firmware is up-to-date.

We have about 100MB printer RAM in our 8100 LJs. I'm not sure is one needs that much, but it is pretty cheap. Check crucial.com.

We don't have any 1000+ page print jobs. Our print jobs are mostly less than 50 pages.

What file format is the print job?

:-) Jay

Re: Slow Printing

Pete Randall — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 12:47:31 GMT

Jay,

Thanks for your response!

Firmware is the absolute latest. We had to upgrade just to get Net(una)Ware to talk to them.

We're now at 176MB RAM.

File format is PCL, I think? Would that make any difference?

Pete

Re: Slow Printing

Bill Brayford_2 — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 14:14:36 GMT

Hi Pete

Have you checked the error log on the printer? If printer sees an error it should be there even if its continuable.

Only possible printer condition I can see is fuser temp temporarily out of range?

And since I can't resist the pun is it possible the printer is mistaking Cows for Sheep and simply nodding off?

Bill

Re: Slow Printing

Jay Bollyn — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 14:18:12 GMT

Pete,

My best guess was JD f/w, and you already have that covered.

When we saw slow printing, it was PDF docs. The pause was sometimes as long as 30 seconds. We changed the printer driver on the winXP clients from PCL to Postscript. PS is well suited for graphics in general, particularly PDF.

You might want to think about upgrading the firmware ROM in the printer. It just snaps into the print formatter like a RAM module. Here is the partsurfer link:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?W237230B7

I'm not sure what Firmware Datecode this upgrade will give you. We have not upgraded our 8100 LJs.

Since you are only seeing this problem on a very long print job, only a small % of 8100 customers are going to see this problem. So I think you might need to try a few things before finding the solution.

:-) Jay

Re: Slow Printing

Pete Randall — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 14:21:22 GMT

Bill,

Thanks, especially for the pun ;^).

I've checked the lp logs to no avail. It sounds, though, like you might be referring to a log the printer itself maintains??

Pete

Re: Slow Printing

Pete Randall — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 14:22:41 GMT

Jay,

I'll have to check for sure whether it's PCL or PS. Thanks for the hint about the firmware ROM. We'll look into it.

Pete