printer fall off the network

[Nick D'Angelo]

All,

This is a strange one, you may be able to help me with.

We are mostly a Windows shop but we do have a couple of HPUX servers.

Every once in a while, the HP laserjets and it could be various models, but particuarly in today's example, a 4050 or 4050tn, they just stop printing from Unix.

The windows network can continue to print, but the jobs just sit in the Unix queue.

When the printers do drop off, I get no response from a ping to that printer.

To correct the problem, I disable the printer in HPUX, have the user's power off the printer and back on again, re-enable the Unix printer and away she goes back to normal.

We use Unix IP based printing using jetadmin v6.2xx on HPUX10.20.

Suggestions???

TIA,
Nick

[Jennifer Maynard]

Are you just having the users turn the printer on , and off, or are they resetting the internal jet direct?

[Nick D'Angelo]

J,

I simply have them power off the laserjet and then back on again.

The Jetdirect is internal on this printer.

Nickd

[harry d brown jr]

If you aren't getting a response to a ping, then it's either a network or printer issue. Are your HP Servers and windoze boxes on the same subnet with the printers?


live free or die
harry

[Nick D'Angelo]

Harry, good point.

No, they are not on the same subnet. In fact, my Servers are in NJ and the printers are in Ontario.

I am not real sharp on network and subnets and such, what should I be looking for?

Thank you,

nickd

[Ron Kinner]

Next time the printer disappears have the Unix guy do a traceroute to the printer and see where the problem occurs. Would be a good idea to do one now while it is working so you can see the difference.

Could be something as simple as a duplicate IP address. Your Windows machines may be getting to the printer through netbeui so they don't care what IP address it has but the UNIX machines do.

Can the Window boxes ping the printer when it goes into its funky mode?

Ron

[Nick D'Angelo]

Another good point.

A lot better than the one on the top of my head <:-)

Yes, we can ping the printer from the Windoze side of the network without a problem.

I will traceroute to the printer(s) now, I have about 3 of them that do it once in a while.

Thanks,
Nickd

[Ron Kinner]

One other thought. Your UNIX boxes probably think of the printers as printerA and printerB (by their hostnames). In order to talk to the things they have to do a DNS query to get the ip address. Could be that the DNS server is losing them somehow. While you are running tests try

nslookup printerA

(substitute the real name for printerA)
and see what the ip address is. Then next time it falls off try pinging the ip address instead of the name. If that works try the nslookup command again. See if it fails.

Ron

[Nick D'Angelo]

Ron,

We are not using dns lookup for our machines on the Unix side of things.

Nickd

[Ron Kinner]

Could be it's hanging the tcp connection and there are only so many connections available to port x. Next time it screws up have the hp guy do
netstat -a |grep wait
and see if you have a bunch of ports stuck in fin_wait.



Ron

[Nick D'Angelo]

All,

I have tried everything listed here, from nslookup to pinging the ip addresses instead of the printer name.

It looks like that the printer goes into power save mode and the Unix server activities don't wake it up properly.

I had a ping running and then the Windows Support team started one from the Windows side of things and the windows world seemed to wake it up.

I guess I will disable the power save mode on the printers. What a pain in the neck.

Nickd

[Nick D'Angelo]

Harry,

No the printers and my server are not on the same subnet.

[Paul Benvenuti]

I'm also experiencing something similar. I'm wondering if two print jobs are being sent to the same printer - one from the windows queue and one from the HP-UX queue. Windows job gets there first and HP job ends up timing out?

I also have to reset the printers (sam, disable then enable) whenever there is an interruption in network services (ex. jetdirect loses power).

[Donny Jekels]

Nick,

I had a similar problem. Replaced the JetAdmin card. And no further issues. Got the repaired card back from HP, swapped it. worked for a week. Same problem occured. Now the Card is hanging of the ceilling :-(

they say some chip on the coard overheats and stops the DSP. for whatever its worth!!

Donny

[Rodney Hills]

Nick,

It could be you need to update the firmware on the jetdirect. Sometimes older firmware can have problems like that.

-- Rod Hills

[None_10]

What I do with Cisco devices is lower the arp timeout on the router. This basically sends a graturatist arp to the printers to wake them up. Another thing that can be down is to enable pim-dense mode on the router, and the ocassional IGMP hellos wake the device up. Crummie TCP stack on the printers I guess!