Two printer queues to the same LTA device failing

[Antonio Gonzalez_4]

VMS 7.3-2
We have defined two print queues sys1_q1 and sys1_q2 on the same LTAxx port on system sys1 pointing to a single printer called LPHP1 (VMS 7.2) with different FORMS. OK so far.
Now we start another box (VMS 7.3-2), and try to do the same stuff with printer LPHP2: define a LTAyyy and two different queues: sys2_q1 and sys2_q2. When I try to START/QUE the second one, i get the error:
%SYSTEM-W-DEVALLOC, device already allocated to another user

All the configuration is similar in sys1 and sys2, DECserver port is: Local Port Type: Application (Queued) & remote; /PROCESSOR=LATSYM; ...
The first queue I defined works, but cant start the second.

-- Any idea to put in place ??
-- Any known bug/patch that may needed on 7.3-2 ??

Thanks in advance

[Karl Rohwedder · Accepted solution]

You could try and use another LTA device pointing to the same server/port.

The time of LTA queues is here far away but I remember, that the devies are owned by the symbiont process: just a wild guess, perhaps the both queues on Sys1 are run by the same symboint process, and on Sys2 by different ones?

regards Kalle

[Karl Rohwedder]

Just an addon the my own reply:

There is a logical LAT$SYMPARAMETER, which defines the number of queues a symbiont can run.

regards Kalle

[Antonio Gonzalez_4]

Karl, thanks for the ideas, I'll try them all and comment after.

antonio

[Ian Miller.]

You need seperate LTA devices referring to the same terminal server port. When the symbiont processes a file it connects to the port, sends the file and disconnects. So multiple queues can use the same terminal server port.

[John Gillings]

Antonio,

What you describe is absolutely normal, expected behaviour for LAT queues on any version of OpenVMS. The first symbiont process allocates the target LTA device, so when a second attempts to open a channel to the same device, you get "device already allocated".

You can have as many LTA devices as you like mapped to the same DECserver port, so your queues can each have their own. Just make sure the LTA devices and the port on the DECserver are set to "queued".

[Antonio Gonzalez_4]

John, what confuse me is that the old system (VMS 7.2-??) is sharing the same LTA with no problems.
It may be managed by a separate symbiont, I'll check it on my next oportunity.
In any case, if we succeeded with separate LTAs, we are all set.

Thanks a lot
I'll be back
antonio

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

I was able to define it on a cluster. Each queue running on a different node using the same LAT port (7.3).

Wim

[Antonio Gonzalez_4]

Wimm,
that is not my case. I'm sharing the same port (LTAx) between two queues in the same system. This same thing work OK in my old system (VMS 7.2) but not in the new (VMS 7.3-2).
Between different systems it should be possible , either from cluster nodes or standalone servers.

Tomorrow I'll check all the ideas and will summarize.

antonio

[Lawrence Czlapinski]

Antonio: 1. The print queues should be spooled to the printers. If you don't spool, you can get lots of flaky problems with applications or a user grabbing a printer. You can only spool one queue per node to a LAT device. Maybe on the old node the LAT device isn't spooled.
2. Why do you want two queues on a node going to the same device?
3. You can have multiple generic queues that go to an execution queue(s). This is often done to handle postscript and text file submissions to an execution queue.
Lawrence

[Phillip Thayer]

There is one other thing that was not mentioned in regard to the terminal server port. Make sure you set the Session Limit to 1 to prevent the possibility of two seperate symbionts connecting to the LTA device at the same time. This can make for very confusing printouts.

Phil

[Antonio Gonzalez_4]

Final conclusions:

In VMS 7.2 I can share the same LTAxx port between 2 different execution queue.
In VMS 7.3-2 I can't. I must use a separate LTAxx port for each queue.

Of course I set the port in the same way: queued and spooled in both versions.

The reason behind this game: we have in the past 2 queues with different /FORM asigned that the application (out of our control) used.
Thus we need two queue names but hav only one physical printer. I can't change the application to force it to use the /FORM qualifier case by case. They choose one or other based upon queue name.
Can I use GENERIC queue ? ... No, GENERIC queues doesn't accept /FORM qualifiers.

So, If I use two different LTA porta pointing to the same SERVER/PORT (>> same printer) everything is OK.

I don't know why VMS behaves differenly from 7.2 to 7.3. It may be something else that I'm missing. I didn't check the SYMBIONT processes on each system, and so forth.

Wim: you can define many queues against the same LTAport from different systems without any problem, either nodes of a cluster or standalone system. The problem is to do this from the same system.

Karl, John & Ian: you are RIGTH in the sense that I need to use different LTA ports !!!.
John: But you are wrong in the first part:
====> What you describe is absolutely normal, expected behaviour for LAT queues on any version of OpenVMS. The first symbiont process allocates the target LTA device, so when a second attempts to open a channel to the same device, you get "device already allocated" <===
I can show you two queues in my 7.2 box, sharing the same LTA port without problems !!.

[Antonio Gonzalez_4]

thanks everybody
regards
antonio

[Shael Richmond]

I ran into this same problem when I first moved to 7.3-1. You are correct and it worked fine for all previous versions of VMS. The response I got from HP was they fixed a bug and this is the correct way it is supposed to work.

To get around it I created a second LTA device and mapped it to the same node and port as the first LTA. It works fine.