Printer not enabling

[Robert Anderson]

We have a situation where all printers are enabling, at reboot, except 1. This particular printer is a very important printer in our production system. What might cause it not to enable? What can I check?

All help is appreciated.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Is this a network printer? Can you ping it by both IP address and hostname?

[Robert Anderson]

It is a remote printer. I was able to enable it manually without a problem. It does not enable at boot up however.

[Helen French]

Hi,

Do you have any error messages ? What will happen if you try enabling it manually ?

some thoughts ...

Shiju

[S.K. Chan]

If it's just that one printer, maybe you can try removing the printer from the spooler and configure it back and see if improves the situation. Does this happens everytime the system reboots ?

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Does this mean that you simply do an 'enable myprinter' and all is well?

Also, have you checked the lp log for errors?

I would also do an lpstat -t while the printer is disabled so that we have some idea of what is going on.

[Robert Anderson]

Yes. There are no problems when we start it manually. It only does it when we re-boot the system. I have only seen one message in the logs: "hpnpd is not running, no job monitor"

[Glenn L. Stewart]

When you reboot is hpnpd running?
If not perform '/sbin/init.d/hpnpd start' and note any errors in lp log.

Also check permissions on request directory of printer in question.

[Bill Hassell]

hpnpd applies only to JetDirect printers connected using HP's JetDirect software. A remote printer would be located on another HP-UX, Unix or perhaps NT/Win2k. So for a remote printer, the server must be compatible.

Now if this is actually an HP JetDirect printer or external LAN box, then don't use remote printer. Instead, use the following commands:

# lpshut
# ps -ulp
(if lp processes are returned, stop each of them with kill -15)
# lpadmin -xProblem_Printer
# addqueue -h IP-address-of-printer -q local_lp_name

That will setup the JetDirect-connected printer correctly.