Print job 'stuck' in queue

[David Knickmeyer]

I have an odd problem. Every now and then a print job gets 'stuck' in a print queue. 'lpstat -p' shows that the queue is idle and 'lpstat -i -o' shows a job sitting in the queue. If you send something else to the queue it prints but the original job still sits there. If the user reprints the job it works fine. They are printing from SAP so there isn't any control the user has or any difference in how the jobs are submitted.

Unfortunately, this last one was a check run, so I had to cancel the job and let them reprint, but I would like to know for future reference,

Thanks,

Dave

[S.K. Chan]

This is just my best guess .. since lpstat checks the printer status against the pstatus file to determine the state of a particular printer, there might be a possibility that the /var/spool/lp/pstatus file is corrupted. Do you have a latest copy of the "pstatus" file saved up ..say on tape. It has to be the latest copy because everytime a printer is added to the system "pstatus" file gets updated. If you have it, what you can do is restore it back. First lpshut your spooler then restore the file before you start the spooler up with lpsched. It's something you can try .. see if it helps.

[Pete Randall]

Dave,

I recall having similar problems back on 10.20. What release are you on? How current are your patches?

Pete

[David Knickmeyer]

Oops. Meant to include release stuff before. We are running 11.0 and all of the lpd-related HP-recommended patches are installed.

Thanks,

Dave

[David Knickmeyer]

Okay, an update...

It happened again (as it does every 2-3 weeks, I guess). This time I was able to validate that the print job actually printed. It shows up in the log as well, it just isn't cleaned up in the print spool. No downtime, printer modifications, etc. were going on at the time.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Dave

[John Poff]

Hi,

Is it the same printer and print queue each time, or does the problem move around different queues?

JP

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Dave,

Any chance that /var becomes temporarily full?
This causes stuff that HAS to write to /var - mainly logging - to do strange things.
Check dmesg & /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log for any such notices.

Rgds,
Jeff