print problem

[Jayan Nair]

Hi All,
Some times my Hp machine model L3000-6 fails to print.
When I check lpstat on that time wont get any output. If I stop start sheduler aslo wont help me print service back.

So I nullify qstatus and restored from its backup then start working fine.

There are 253 printers installed.
qstatus size is 47564.
Is same as 188*253
Could any body please tell what is the exact reason for this.

Reagrds
Jayan

[TTr]

These two files hold the printer (device) and queue status so they can be getting updated quite often with that many printers in your system. Check if there are any LP related patches for your OS version. The pstatus/qstatus seem to become corrupt for some reason, there is no size limit on these. Also check if your /var filesystem has any inconsistencies by doing a read test and an fsck. And check the volume where /var/ is created for any errors.

[Dennis Handly]

Bill has some info on those status files:
http://forums.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1344243

[TTr]

You did not mention which OS version you have but does this sound familiar?
"System files residing in /var/spool/lp get corrupted"
This is a bug fix in patch PHCO_33401 for HP-UX 11.11.

If you run strings on the pstatus and qstatus files you will see that they contain the current status of the printer and queue. This status can be getting updated very often with that many spoolers in your server. There is probably a locking issue when more than one lpsched modifies these files.