DTC Printer problems

[Shar Hunter]

I have been having printer issues ever since upgrading to HPUX 11.0 from 10.2

We have one server, 3 DTC's, and about 35 okidata printers. The printers are using 'dumb' as their script.

Originally we had DTC problems where the DTC port would fall asleep. Applied a patch, and that problem went away. Another problem was a printer would get interupted by a new print job that would over ride the previous one before it was completed. I edited the print script in /etc/lp/interface/ and that problem went away.

Now the remaining problem is that it seems that if a print job of more then 100 pages is sent to any printer, the printer will not complete the print job, it stops mid page at around 90-110 pages into the print job.

I know it is not the printers. I suspect it might be a DTC issue, or in HPUX.

We use the normal lp print commands.

Any ideas

[S.K. Chan]

Is there a "pr_serv_telnet_mode" variable in your printer configuration file? If yes then set it to ENABLE.
Another possibility is that you got a bad/unstable DTC port. Try changing the DTC port configuration.

[paul courry]

I've seen this problem before. For my situation it was related to Xon/Xoff (DC1 & DC3 codes are used for Xon/Xoff).

1. How far is the printer away from the computer? A couple of thousand miles will cause problems, a couple of thousand feet will not.
2. Slap an analyzer on the input to the printer, you can jury rig one using a dumb terminal and a breakout box. A missed Xoff command will shut the whole thing down.
3. At 90 pages you could be overrunning you printer buffer, the problem *might* go away if you slow down the baud rate. For my printers 2,000 miles away I've had to slow them down to 1200 baud in order to prevent buffer overflow.

Serial printer configuration is a lost art. It might take some careful analysis, poking around and some bit level sleuthing to solve the problem. Please post more info and I'll try to help