topic Re: Printer Qeues in Operating System - OpenVMS

Printer Qeues

nipun_2 — Wed, 11 May 2005 08:43:31 GMT

Hi,
we have vms 7.3-1 and a 3 node common environment cluster running on ethernet lan.

We have a generic printer qeue HPLJET_PS setup. Now often some applications start the print qeues. Sometimes the qeues go into pending stage and after certain point and time when I do
$ Show entry

It shows me a list of entries (including printing jobs). Out of these the print jobs simply don't print (or get executed).

The only thing that we do right now is do
del /en=(number) and manually delete each entry. If that still doesn't work then we reboot the entire system.

And again the whole process starts from entry =1 and now if we send anything to the printer it prints.

Is there a better way to stop printer queues an d restart them

I tried

$stop /que /reset HPLJET_PS
$init /que /start /generic=HPLJET_PS

however it just showed all the previous entries as "stopped" and the new entries I started after the initialization were simply pending.

Please let me know what would be the right way to restart the printer qeues.

Note: Our print jobs often consists of Images and our printer is a Laser jet HP 4000
Thanks in Advance.

Re: Printer Qeues

Volker Halle — Wed, 11 May 2005 09:16:26 GMT

Nipun,

printers are driven by print-symbionts, which operate device execution queues. A generic queue is a higher-level structure, which accepts print-jobs and distributes them to execution queues.

You can stop an execution queue with STOP/QUE/RESET HPLJET_PS

And you can start it again with START/QUE HPLJET_PS

$init /que /start /generic=HPLJET_PS

This command is missing the target queue name parameter, that you want to start. The /GENERIC=HPLJET_PS qualifier specifies, that print-jobs submitted to this 'generic' queue (who's name you did not specify as a parameter) are to be sent to the execution queue HPLJET_PS.

If a print-job does not get printed, use SHOW ENT/FULL or SHOW QUE/ALL/FULL HPLJET_PS to find out the reason why.

Volker.

Re: Printer Qeues

Terry Yeomans — Thu, 12 May 2005 03:10:48 GMT

If you need to get rid of quite a few entries, then:
STOP /RESET /QUEUE queue_name
DELETE /QUEUE queue_name
Then @ the startup com file that creates your queue. Hope this helps. Terry.

Re: Printer Qeues

Mobeen_1 — Thu, 12 May 2005 07:49:24 GMT

Nipun,
There certainly is no need for rebooting the system every time you have an issue with the print queues. Can you please provide the following

$show queue/full HPLJET_PS
$show entry/full (this should give some reason for not printing)

regards
Mobeen

Re: Printer Qeues

nipun_2 — Fri, 13 May 2005 11:37:06 GMT

Hello Thanks for the replies.

I had a print problem again although this might might be because of a different nature

We have evaluation application which first uses

via generic que (sys$fast) assings to the execution queues (in order) SC4238_Fast,Salsa_Fast

These two exection queues goes to two different nodes and

I just changed the order of execution que so that Execut que is Salsa_Fast followed by SC4238_Fast.

To do that I did the following

stop /reset SYS$Fast
INIT /QUE /START /GENERIC =(SALSA_FAST,SC4238_FAST)
INIT /QUE /START /BATCH SALS_FAST

I did
Sh que /full /generic
sh en /full hpljet_ps
sh que /full hpljet_ps

I am attaching the files

Re: Printer Qeues

Lawrence Czlapinski — Fri, 13 May 2005 12:04:08 GMT

Nipun:
It should be:
$INIT /QUE /START /GENERIC =(SALSA_FAST,SC4238_FAST) SYS$FAST
Lawrence

Re: Printer Qeues

nipun_2 — Fri, 13 May 2005 12:12:29 GMT

Hi Lawrence,
Thanks for the reply. I believe it did ask me for the generic que name and I gave
SYS$Fast so effectively same as
int..../generic = ... SYS$FAST

And I think it did work fine (at least the evaluations) but print outs
were the problem
Nipun

Re: Printer Qeues

Jan van den Ende — Fri, 13 May 2005 12:55:41 GMT

Nipun,

I am just guessing now, but, are ALL your disks mounted on ALL your nodes? If yes, forget this. If NO, then consider: how could a queue process a file it cannot reach?

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

Re: Printer Qeues

nipun_2 — Fri, 13 May 2005 14:36:23 GMT

Thanks for the reply Jan,
But yeah all the disks are mounted

Nipun

Re: Printer Qeues

Jan van den Ende — Fri, 13 May 2005 15:20:15 GMT

Nipun,

can you describe your 'issues' a bit more, please?

-- your print command, and then
-- sh que/all/ful
-- any messages?

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

Re: Printer Qeues

nipun_2 — Mon, 16 May 2005 10:04:57 GMT

Hi Jan,
I have put the results as Mobeen was asking in a zipped attachment in my previous response. It has 3 text files.

Regarding the specific commands

My objective was to change the order of execution queues

(SC4238_FAST,SALSA_FAST) was the order where SC4238 is the node name for Server node so

I did the following

$stop /que /reset SYS$FAST where SYS$FAST is the generic que (details in my TXT attachment)

$init /que /batch /start /generic=(SALSA_FAST,SC4238_FAST)

I did not touch the printer que HPLJET_PS

Normally we have an "Evaluation application" which sends the job to SYS$FAST and gets assigned to respective exec queues. Once the evaluation is done, the application(I think) automatically starts a print queue.

Now there are two different problems here (could have one solution though).

1st Due to the above (stop and init que changes) I did after the evaluation is done by SYS$FAST que there is no printing que started.

2nd Before I did any changes (the way the things normally are at startup) often after the evaluation is completed the printer queue started stays pending and the no of printer entries just keep building up. So finally we reboot the whole system and things get back to normal.

Please let me know for which problem you are suggesting an explanation. If you need more info please let me know
Nipun

Re: Printer Qeues

Jan van den Ende — Mon, 16 May 2005 11:36:17 GMT

Nipun

Sorry, I had not read the ZIPs before (blocked by policy).
Now, at home, I have seen them.

I notice HPLJET_PS being generic, and it has an execution que HPLJET.

_THAT_ is the print execution queue, Can you post what _THAT_ looks like?

From what I have seen so far, I would guess that THERE is your trouble somehow.
Please post the outpot of
$ SHOW QUEU HPLJET /FUL/ALL.
(if you make that a simple text file (extension .TXT), then I am sure it will come through).

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

Re: Printer Qeues

Anton van Ruitenbeek — Mon, 16 May 2005 14:25:57 GMT

Nipun,

I don't understand why you are using a generic queue. Why aren't you printing directly using TCPIP$TELNETSYM ?
Using /AUTOSTART_ON=(node1,node2,node3) you can make sure this queue is always running in the cluster.
But anyway, the queue can be stopped because possible you are using the wrong processor. '/PROCESSOR=TCPIP$TELNETSYM' on the execution queue .
If there are more systems printing to this printer, the printer will be stalled until the other system gives the printer 'back' or 'releases the printer' for other jobs.
A printer can only get information from one system at once. If eg windows is printing to this printer and doesn't free the printer, the printer stays connected to windows and no other system (even VMS) can print until this is done. Even so for VMS. If VMS is printing to the printer and doesn't free the printer after the job no other system can print to this printer. This was in the time from TTA to LTA most of the time the problem. The PROCESSOR could be the same, but never released.

AvR

Re: Printer Qeues

nipun_2 — Tue, 17 May 2005 09:22:27 GMT

Hi Jan,
I am attaching the text file

I did the following
On the satellite node
$show que /full HPLJET /out=PRINT_HPLJET_FULL.TXT

Re: Printer Qeues

nipun_2 — Tue, 17 May 2005 09:23:20 GMT

One more file
I am attaching one more text file

I did the following
On the Server Node
$show que /full HPLJET /out=PRINT_HPLJET_FULL_SERVER.TXT

Re: Printer Qeues

Jan van den Ende — Wed, 18 May 2005 07:49:31 GMT

Nipun,

to me that looks good.

I assume you CAN ping the printer?

$ TCPIP PING HLPJET

If just from the command line, you do a
$ PRINT /QUE=HPLJET
does the file get printed?
and
$ PRINT/QUE=HPLJET_PS ?

we WILL get it going!!

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

Re: Printer Qeues

nipun_2 — Wed, 25 May 2005 09:19:33 GMT

Hi Jan,
Thanks for the reply.

I can take direct printouts all the time like
$Print filename

Currently all the printing seems to be working fine.But when the problem occurs in future I intend to collect the data as

$show que /full HPLJET /out=PRINT_HPLJET_FULL_SERVER.TXT

$show que /full HPLJET_PS /out=PRINT_HPLJET_FULL_SERVER.TXT

and post it here.

For now I was able to
Ping successfully. I also tried both the commands

$Print /que=HPLJET
printed the file successfully

$Print /que=HPLJET_PS
printed a kind of Info sheet
stating the node name user account entry no. and file name
25-MAY-2005 ....%DCPS-W-UNDEF,undefined: Name not known - offending command is $
25-May.......%DCPS-E-FLUSHING, Rest of Job (to EOJ) will be ignored

Then details like
Owner UIC: [XXXX,XXX]
Account:[XXX]

Priority: 100
Submit queue:HPLJET_PS
Submitted:25-MAYXXXX
Printer queue: HPLJET
Printer device: "IP_RawTCP/hpljet:9100"
Started: 25-XXX
Finished: 25-XXX

Qualifiers: /FORM=DCPS$DEFAULT
Parameters: DATA_TYPE=POSTSCRIPT, PAGE_SIZE_A,SHEET_SIZE=A
Sheets printed: 1

So if this is normal then I will just wait for the problem to occur again and do the above mentioned commands.

If this is a problem let me know

Re: Printer Qeues

Jan van den Ende — Wed, 25 May 2005 09:37:45 GMT

Nipun,

I am now entering territory that I have noe experience myself, so maybe others can supply better details, but as far as I can see now, (please correct if my view is wrong) you are (correctly printing a plain text file. But if you choose the other queue, then it it set to expect PostScript fromatted data, and it does not know what to do with other input.

If it works (correct), then just use that :-).

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe