OCD Errors

[Brad Marks]

I have a serial printer on a dtc16tn and, after printing about 3 pages of a job, stops and the resumes at about page 11. This behaviour continues throughout the 24 pages of the report.
Here's what syslog has to say:
Jan 31 13:01:42 fki ocd[1847]: (200) ERROR: Unable to obtain data from network:
system error 232: Connection reset by peer
Jan 31 13:01:42 fki ocd[1847]: (270) ERROR: System returned error 256 while disa
bling printer: system error 0
Jan 31 13:01:42 fki ocd[1847]: (299) ERROR: Closing connection due to error with
data path
Jan 31 13:01:42 fki ocd[1847]: (297) ERROR: Removing pseudonym /dev/telnet/d1901
and closing pty /dev/ptym/ptyp8
Jan 31 13:01:42 fki ocd[1847]: (296) ERROR: Recreating pseudonym /dev/telnet/d19
01 with new pty

This group of error messages appears each time the printer fails.
A strange aside: I am in California and it is now 10:55 AM. If you look at the syslog entries, you might notice that the time stamps are three hours in the future. Only error messages from ocd are 3 hours off.

Thanks

[paul courry]

Need details.

How far is printer from computer? 3 feet or 3,000 miles?

Make and model of printer?
baud rate?

etc.

[Rodney Hills]

If timeout issues are a problem on your network, try altering the "telnet_timer:" in the pcf_xxxx file under /etc/ddfa to a larger number. I currently have it set at 600.

Also, a common problem with serial printers is to be sure XON/XOFF handshaking is enabled on both the port and the printer.

Also, a long time ago I did have problems with network packets being dropped by the DTC, but an upgrade to the system fixed it.

HTH

-- Rod Hills

[Brad Marks]

Paul,
Thanks for the response.
The printer is about 40 feet away from the dtc which is about 100 yards from the computer.
The printer is a Datasouth Documax dot matrix printer. It is connected at 9600, 7, 1, odd and uses x-on/x-off handshanking, and is using pins 1,3 & 7.

My telnet timer is set to 60. Maybe I should up it to 600 as Rodney has his?

Here is the contents of my pcf file. It hasn't been modified since Feb, 1998!

telnet_mode: enable
timing_mark: enable
telnet_timer: 30
binary_mode: disable
open_tries: 5
open_timer: 30
close_timer: 180
status_request: disable
status_timer: 30
eightbit: disable
tcp_nodelay: enable

Thanks,
Brad

[Brad Marks]

Do I need to repost this in order to get a response?

[paul courry]

Hey! Can't a guy go on vacation?

My questions were asked because I experienced the same problems, but mine were due to the fact that the printer was seperated by 3,000 miles.

It's obvious that you are overrunning your buffer in the printer. I would slow the speed down in steps until it works. In my case I had to slow it down to 1200 baud to prevent buffer overruns.

If I'm right then you will be able to print more and more pages as you slow down the baud rate until you don't miss anything.

If I'm wrong then the problem will continue unabated.

Use DTCCNTRL to shutdown and restart the DTC without rebooting.

BTW, what type are you specifying the printer as?

[Brad Marks]

In desperation I killed and restarted the ocd process for the port in question and it seems fine now.

Any thoughts on how some dtc entries in syslog are three hours in the future?!?

Hope your vacation was a good un.
Thanks for your help,
Brad