Printer Status CONNECT

[nickbungus]

Hi All

Does anyone know what is meant by PRINTER STATUS CONNECT concerning print queues and what can be causing it?

When a printer goes down and I lpstat I get the Connect status.

At work we run a Perle/Connectix JetStream 8500 (RJ45 Model) to connect our dot matrix printers and often we get the Connect Status.

Nobody I speak to knows what the status means. When the printer queues have this status nothing can print. After an extended period of time the status changes back to READY and everything is fine once more.

The problem is happening more and more frequently.

Please help as its causing me headaches.

OS = AIX 5.2
Printing Sub System = QDaemon Renbak

Nick James

 

[ogniemi]

http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docvie...=isg1pTechnote0713&loc=en_US&cs=utf-8&lang=en

Understanding Print Queue Status
Technote

This document discusses the methods of obtaining information from AIX queues and the information returned when getting queue status information. Special topics include how to avoid the wait when remote queues return delayed status and how to display file names with the status commands.
This document covers all levels of AIX.

AIX printer status commands
AIX printer status field format
AIX printer status conditions
Remote queue status
Viewing only local queue status
Viewing the long filenames in the status
Viewing the temporary filenames in the status


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AIX printer status commands
The AIX status commands are shown below. For details see the man pages for each command.

enq [ -q | -A ] [ -L | -W ] [ -e ] [ -# JobNumber ] [ -u Name ] [ -w Seconds ] [ -s]
qchk [ -A ] [ -L | -W ] [ -P Printer ] [ -# JobNumber ] [ -q ] [ -u UserName ] [ -w Delay ]
lpstat [ -aList ] [ -cList ] [ -d ] [ -oList ] [ -pList ] [ -r ] [ -s ] [ -t ] [ -uList ] [ -vList ] [ -W ]
lpq [ + [ Number ] ] [ -l | -W ] [ -P Printer ] [ JobNumber ] [ UserName ]

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AIX printer status field format
A typical, short (default) status will look like:

Queue Dev Status Job Files User PP % Blks Cp Rnk
------- ----- --------- --- ------------------ ---------- ---- -- ----- --- ---
asc lp0 RUNNING 165 STDIN.20178 jwtesch 5 19 21 1 1
QUEUED 167 STDIN.22612 root 42 1 1
QUEUED 169 STDIN.22644 root 21 2 3
QUEUED 170 /etc/motd root@aix4p 1 1 4
Queue
Print Queue name.
Dev
Print Queue Device Name. If the Queue has multiple devices, they can be addressed individually as queue:device. If this is a local queue, this will usually have the name of the special device file in the /dev directory, but there is really no linkage between the queue device and the /dev device unless specified in the FILE= parameter of the queue device. Wise practice will limit queue device names to 5 characters.
Status
This is the condition of the queue.
See AIX printer status conditions.
Job
This is the Job number assigned by enq at AIX 4, or by the qdaemon at AIX 3. This number is determined by the next number in /var/spool/ldp/pio/stat/numfile. This is the job that you can cancel or set the priority for.
Files
These are the file names of the files printing. STDIN indicates the data has been piped to the print command.
User
This is the name of the user who submitted the job. If the user is on a remote system, it will also try to identify the client name in this field using space available.
PP
Pages Printed.
This is really not very valid. How it is actually used depends on the pipeline of backend programs. For piobe on local queues, this will be more of an indicater of pages counted during the formatting process for ASCII files only. This will have no meaning for PostScript or Passthrough queues.
Note: This will not accurately reflect the data that is in the output tray of the printer.
%
Percent of Job Printed. In most cases this will be an indication of the percent of the bytes in the file that have been sent to the Printer or Print Server. This may vary based on the backend and shouldn't be used for performance monitoring or the like.
Blks
Number of thousand-byte blocks in the file. This factor is not determined by processing, but by a system call.
Cp
Number of Copies of the file to be printed. The number specified by the enq or qprt -N flag, the lpr -# flag, or the lp -n flag.
Rnk
Rank or order of the print job on this queue. Number 1 will print first, 2 next, and so on.

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AIX printer status conditions
The status conditions vary depending on the backend programs, but they are fairly standard for local queues. They are defined in:


/usr/include/IN/backend.h
The Defined status conditions are:


READY
Queue is up. This queue has no jobs waiting to be printed and is ready to accept new jobs if qdaemon is running.
RUNNING
Queue is running a job; other jobs can be queued and will be printed when this job is done.
WAITING or DEV_WAIT
Queue could not open and is waiting on a device. The device may be out of paper, offline, jammed, or have wiring problems. NEVER add, remove or change any queue when a queue on the same system is in a DEV_WAIT state without first correcting the problem.
OFF or DOWN
Queue is down. The queue has been disabled with enq -D, or disable, or qadm -D. The queue will accept jobs, but they will not be run until the queue is reenabled with enq -U, enable, or qadm -U.
INIT or INITIALIZE
Driver is initializing. This is most often seen with PSF/6000 queues while the subsystem is coming up.
SENDING
Data is being sent to a remote host either with rembak or a socket program such as piohpnpf (JetDirect) or the MarkNet software.
GETHOST
Queue is in the process of determining the foreign server.
CONNECT
Backend is in the process of establishing connections with a remote server.
BUSY
The device that is to be used by the backend is busy printing another job for another queue, or is in a locked state.

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Remote queue status
When obtaining the status of a remote queue, the status of both the local queue and the remote queue will be shown. This will usually give a status such as:

Queue Dev Status Job Files User PP % Blks Cp Rnk
------- ----- --------- --- ------------------ ---------- ---- -- ----- --- ---
gena @tesc READY <---- client queue gena, queue device @tesch
gena genas DOWN <---- server queue genasc, queue device lpx
QUEUED 167 STDIN.22612 root 42 1 1
QUEUED 170 /etc/motd root@aix4p 1 1 4
The exact format of the remote status will depend on the type of LPD running on the server as well as the stat filter setup in the client queue.
In the preceding case, The local (client) queue is empty and shows that the data has already been passed to the remote queue, which is down. The queue on the remote (server) system also has a job #167 that was sent locally on the server.

The Queue name for both lines of the status will show the client queue name as the name, but the Device will show the client device (usually the server name) for the local status line and the server queue name for the device name of the remote queue status line.
Note: Only five characters of the device name will display.


Viewing remote queue status with two queue devices
If the server has two queue devices for the queue, then you will see three lines in the status as follows:

#lpstat -vteschasc
Queue Dev Status Job Files User PP % Blks Cp Rnk
------- ----- --------- --- ------------------ ---------- ---- -- ----- --- ---
teschas @tesc READY <---- client queue teschasctesch
teschas asc READY <---- server queue asc:lp0
asc lpxt READY <---- server queue asc:lpxt
Note that the third line (the second queue device on the server queue) has the queue name of the server queue.
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Viewing only local queue status
One frequent problem encountered with remote queue status is the long wait for queues to time out if the remote server is down. Sometimes it is only important to check the status of the queues on the server. This can be done as follows:

AIX 3.2: enq -sA
AIX 4: enq -isA
AIX 5: enq -isA

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Viewing the long queue names in the status
By default, only the first seven characters of the queue name will be displayed in the status. This can create some confusion when longer queue names are used. Here is an example of three queues that have the same first seven characters. One of the queues is a remote queue while the other two are local. The normal lpstat looks like this:
# lpstat
Queue Dev Status Job Files User PP % Blks Cp Rnk
------- ----- --------- --- ------------------ ---------- ---- -- ----- --- ---
rm2004_ @aix4 READY
rm2004_ asc READY
rm2004_ lp0 READY
rm2004_ lp0 READY
By using the enq -W flag, these names can readily be identified as shown here:

# enq -A -W
Queue Dev Status Job Files User
-------------------- -------------- --------- ------ ------------------ ----
rm2004_laser01 @aix4prt READY
rm2004_laser01 asc READY
rm2004_pcl lp0 READY
rm2004_ps lp0 READY

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Viewing the temporary filenames in the status
To view temporary filenames in the status, use the lpstat -t flag. By default, only the original file name will be displayed. The enq -L flag will also display this information. The first half of the line looks like this:
# lpstat -t -vasc
Queue Dev Status Job Name From To
------- ----- --------- --------- --- --- ----- --- ---- --
asc lp0 DEV_WAIT 785 STDIN.113993 jwtesch@alcatr jwtesch@alcatr

QUEUED 786 STDIN.30663 jwtesch@alcatr jwtesch@alcatr
The second half of the status lines contains the temporary file name as shown here:
Submitted Rnk Pri Blks Cp PP %
01/19/99 17:02:25 1 15 4 1 /var/spool/lpd/dfA184alcatraz
01/19/99 17:02:48 2 15 36 1 /home/violet/scream.text
Note: This also shows the date and time that the job was queued. In this example both files have names beginning with STDIN, which means that they were either piped to the print command, or received by lpd from a remote client. In this case, the first file must have come from a remote client because it is stored in /var/spool/lpd. The second file must have been piped to a print command, maybe using cat /home/violet/scream.text | enq.