Printing problem / how does it really work

[Raymond Wu - MTG]

I think I am at the point I need to ask again how exactly does printing work.

I have started lpsched -v so I see entries in the log files as my users are submitting their print jobs.

But again they don't get printed and when I do a lpstat-o on the particular queues, thgere is no entries. But when I do to the request subdirectory, there are entries under each of the printer queue names.

Am I confusing the two? Outstanding requests/enqueued items vs contents of request?

[TTr]

Roughly, it is a two part process. First, the users use the "lp" command to *submit* their files to the printing system. The lp command takes the file along with the appropriate options and puts in in the /var/spool/lp/request/que-name as a print job (job sequence number) to be printed out. Second the lpsched monitors the spool area and when it sees a print job, it takes it and invokes one of the /etc/lp/interface/que-name scripts to actually send that print job file to the printer device.

It looks like the first part works correctly. But the lpsched part is not. Assuming you have checked everything else so far, it all points out to a corruption in the printer queue database, namely the 3 files I mentioned above.

[Raymond Wu - MTG]

Hi Rita,

I did confirm everything under /var/spool/lp is in fact owned by lp with the exceptions of the symlinks which is owned by root.

As far as the copies, I assumed you had wanted me to copy them off with a ".1" at the end of it to preserve them prior to deleting them.

If I'm wrong, then oops but that's what I did.

I also assumed that you hade wanted me to try to print up the spooler with a new copy of each of the files saved off which I did.

Started the spooler and tried doing my quickie test of echo "test" | lp and didn't see it on the printer but did see it added into the request directory of the printer.

THere still is no lpsched process running tho.

Doing a restore is going to be a problem since we've been having backup issues and that's a different problem altogether.

[Albert Smith_1]

I have had this problem very often and here is what I do to clear it. THIS WILL CLEAR ALL PRINT JOBS

lpshut
cd /etc/lp/interface
cancel -e *
lpsched

queues should be clear at that point.

[Raymond Wu - MTG]

Hi,

Just to let you all know that I reached out to you all because my support contract had lapsed w/o me knowing and I was in dire need. A parallel activity was to ram my renewal thru the pipeline and luckily for me I got the VAR to get me a courtesy call after I had the PO issued.

Karla of Singapore forwarded meea troublshooting document which right before me having to restore from backup the outputq, pstatus, and qstatus was to save them off and fire up a test print which worked. So then all was left was to apply a qucky script to re-submit the jobs stuck.

Thanks for all your help and suggestions.

Ray