Stopped TCPIP$LPD_SMB print queues OpenVMS 7.3-2

[Max Pierre]

Hi,

We find time to time some print queues in a stopped state. I would like to know if the symbiont is able to stop a print queue if, for some reason, the destination host is unreachable.
There are a lot of time variables defined for each queue but the documentation about those variables don't tell us if a queue can be "forced" into a stopped state due to a communication problem between the symbiont and the destination host driving the output queue.
Here follows the variable values we have :

LPD Spooler Directory : TCPIP$LPD_ROOT:[000000]
Retry-Interval : 0 00:05:00.00
Retry-Maximum : 0 01:00:00.00
Idle-Timeout : 0 00:05:00.00
Inbound-Queues-Per-Node : 1
Utility-Queues-Per-Node : 0
Receiver-Debug : 0
Symbiont-Debug : 0
Utilities-Debug : 0
Loop-Max : 0
Droptime : 0
Probetime : 0
PS-Extensions : LPS
Stream-Passall : FALSE
VMS-Flagpages : FALSE
Persistent-Server : FALSE
Keepalive : FALSE
Synchronize-All-Jobs : TRUE
Setup-NoLF : FALSE
1st-VFC-Prefix-Special : FALSE
Setup-Buffer-Size : 1024
Broadcast-Msg : TRUE

Thanks in advance for your help
Pierre

[Hoff]

Ok, ITRC is not the best forum for this. If the documentation does not answer a legitimate question (and it doesn't look to, in this case), then you will want to forget about ITRC. You will want to or need to talk to HP support directly as a: you have a question and b: the documentation has an error or an omission.

I'd expect that yes, the TCP/IP Services software can stop queues when sufficiently severe problems arise; check the symbiont log files for any details that might be included.

And as a general rules when these problems arise (and given that HP support is likely to ask about these aspects), apply the most current patch kit for TCP/IP Services, check the aforementioned logs, and also establish and maintain monitoring for your network and network connectivity.

As you have clearly also already read through the TCP/IP Services documentation, you could also consider enabling the debugging-related knobs here, as well.

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/83final/6526/6526pro_053.html#lpd_chap

[Volker Halle]

Pierre,

you may also try to set up the queue with /RETAIN=ERROR. This would cause the print-job, which incurred the failure, to be held in the queue with an appropriate error messages (use SHOW QUE/FULL/ALL queue-name).

You could also try to obtain the print-job status from accounting ($ ACC/TYPE=PRINT/FULL)

Volker.

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

As said, check the lpd log files. Also check accounting for the process exit status (not the print job but the lpd symbiont running process). Check audit log log files for security violations. Operator log file may contain messages too.

May be someone did a stop/id of the symbiont ? May be an update of the host file was done during symbiont activity (with remove and add again) ?

Wim

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

While using 6.2 I had the same problem and also for unknown reasons (or I forgot them after all those years). Stopping and starting the queues every day solved the problem for 95%. But at that time even /retain=error was not active.

Wim