lpstat message: "waiting for queue to be enabled"

[Matt Hearn]

One of our various printers has started misbehaving, such that application users submit print jobs and they just hang in the queue. When I run lpstat, I get the list of print jobs, and finally this message:

[server]: waiting for queue to be enabled on [printserver]

This is bizarre because we don't get this message on any other server using this printer, they all just send the jobs straight through. We had jobs in the queue that were over a month old! I cancelled all of them, and once the queue was empty ran an lpstat and got the normal message:
[server]:[printer]: ready and waiting

So I thought it was fixed and submitted a job. Unfortunately, it just hung again and gave me the same error as before! I can't figure out what the problem could be, particularly since it doesn't appear on any other printer or server. Any ideas? Thanks!

[Jaime Bolanos Rojas.]

Matt have you tried starting and stopping the scheduler already?

The printer was working fine before?

Regards,

Jaime

[Matt Hearn]

I did indeed stop and start the scheduler, and disabled/reenabled the printer. No change.

[Peter Nikitka]

Hi,

check if 'printserver' can be reached from 'server' - perhaps there is a problem with name resolution of network outages.
The may be related entries in syslog.log .


mfG Peter

[A. Clay Stephenson]

I assume that this is a "Remote" printer in HP-UX speak --- as opposed to a "Network" printer. Make certain that your hostname resolution is correct. Can you ping the printer via hostname? I've also seen this when the remote hostname is correct but the queuename (the name of the print queue on the remote host) is incorrect. The fix for that is to remove and reinstall the print queue on your HP-UX box.

[Jaime Bolanos Rojas.]

Also you could check this threat, you might be able to find your solution there:

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=977349

Jaime.

[Matt Hearn]

It is indeed a remote printer. I can ping the IP address, and I can telnet to port 515 on the print server, so it doesn't appear to be a firewall issue. The hostname resolves through DNS, and I added it to /etc/hosts to be on the safe side; no change.

I DID discover that I was incorrect; the printing issue is occurring on all our UNIX servers. None of them can get to this printer, but they CAN get to other printers on the same server! Also, all of the Windows systems that use this printer are having no difficulties.

I'm trying to get answers from our print server administrator to find out if there's something that might be disallowing my servers to access the printer. Does anyone know anything about that?

I tried removing and readding the printer queue on the HP-UX side, but that didn't change anything.

[Matt Hearn]

Also, I forgot to mention: the NT print server guy doesn't see any evidence that my jobs are even hitting his queue. They may not even be leaving the machine. But if it was a communications problem, I don't think I'd be able to print to anything on that print server, and other printers respond fine. It's just this one that's iffy.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Did he share this printer?

[Matt Hearn]

Thanks for the replies, everyone! Looks like the problem was on the NT Print Server. The admin removed and rebuilt the queue, and now printing is going through fine. Thanks!