Printer slow through DTC

[Victor_5]

I have some bar code Intermec printers connected to one K class (HPUX 10.20) through DTC. From the time to time, I am experiencing the slow response problem, sometimes 1 page docoument take 20 minutes. But after I submit the job, I can see the job sitting in the queue. When slow problem happen, not only one printer, pretty much it will slow down all the printers. I have limit experience with DTC, any idea on that? Any comment will be appreciated and the point will be assigned. Thanks!

[Chris Wilshaw]

Victor,

The printer should be set up in /etc/ddfa/dp in a similar way to this;

AAA.BBB.CCC.DDD 01/NN /dev/TTTTTTTT /etc/ddfa/lp_pcf

where

AAA.BBB.CCC.DDD is the IP address of the DTC
NN is the port number that it's connected to
TTTTTTTT is the name of your device file (including the full path name).

The lp_pcf file (may be called another name) contains some of the port parameters that will be used when you try to print to this device (various timeouts etc) It may be that one or more of the settings in here is causing your problem.

Can you post the contents of that file, and also the baud rate etc of the port that your printer is connected to.

[Victor_5]

Thanks Chris for your reply.

It uses /etc/ddfa/pcf, here is the contect:

telnet_mode: enable
timing_mark: enable
telnet_timer: 120
binary_mode: disable
open_tries: 1500
open_timer: 30
close_timer: 30000
status_request: disable
status_timer: 30
eightbit: disable
tcp_nodelay: enable

By the way, how to check the baud rate?

[Chris Wilshaw]

Victor,

The way to check the baud rate depends on what software you're using to control the DTC.

If it's the standard HP DTC 16RX Manager, the command

rdtcstat | more

will show the details (quite a few screens of info, so you'll need to page down).

As to your pcf file, on the systems I run, we have the close_timer field set to 5 seconds (this is defined in the pcf man page as

"the time in seconds between the close call made by the application on the pty slave and the moment when the connection is actually closed"

I'm not sure what the effect of having this set to 30000 seconds would be, but it may be worth reducing this. Once you make the change, you'll need to run

/usr/sbin/dpp /etc/ddfa/dp -k

to ensure that the ocd processes associated with the DTC are refreshed.

[Victor_5]

Thanks Chris, the band rate is 9600. For the "close_timer: 30000", I will make a change and see what is happening.

One question for you, everytime when I submit the job, the job will sit in the queue for 15 minutes, the actual print does not start until 15 minutes later, but once it starts, all the jobs can go through and no slow problem. I know there are some timer configuration in DTC, but don't know where, can you give me some inputs here? Thanks.

[Rodney Hills]

These are the pcf configurations I use and the print starts immediatelly.-

elnet_mode: enable # use TELNET protocol
timing_mark: enable # send TELNET TM before TCP FIN
telnet_timer: 600 # 0 => wait forever for TM or BN reply
binary_mode: disable # enable for permanent binary
open_tries: 1500 # 0 => exponential backoff
open_timer: 30 # 0 => retry forever
close_timer: 5 # delay before closing connection
status_request: disable # enable for status-request printers
status_timer: 30 # 0 => wait indefinately for SR reply
eightbit: disable # enable for extended ascii
tcp_nodelay: enable # send data immediately to lan

HTH

-- Rod Hills

[Victor_5]

Thanks, Rodney!