HP JetDirect printer delay.

[Simon Qu]

In HP11i, we have a JetDirect printer server, printing to Okidata dot printer. Every time when we send a job, it is not printing right away, but it does print after several minutes or after I reset the Okidata and wait a while.
Does anyone know what the problem is?
We want to buy a new Jetdirect or a new okidata printer, but first I need to know which one causes the problem, Jetdirect or okidata or something else ?

Thanks.

[Geoff Wild]

What is Idle Timeout set to?

It might not help - but try setting it higher - say 270 (90 by default)...

Send a print job, then do a:

hpnpadmin -v QUEUENAME

where QUEUENAME is the queue name of your printer...

maybe the printer is in sleep mode, then takes a while to warm up?

Rgds...Geoff

[A. Clay Stephenson]

This is generally caused by data being sent to the printer but no commands to cause it to flush the output and print --- especially if this is a one-page print job or if you are waiting for the last page to print. Because a FF almost always triggers a printer flush regardless of the printer model, I would create a small test file and then 'echo "\f\c" >> mytestfile. Lp mytestfile and if that prints, you need to modify the interface file to append the appropriate character stream to the printjob.