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Purge printer spool

Phil

Purge printer spool
« on: April 25, 2001, 09:55:53 AM »
I have an Apple Laserwriter Select 360 connected to e-smith 4.1.2. Printing from a Mac is perfect....

BUT... when printing from a Windows 9x box, I can't print! Stuck in the print spool is a document from the "root" user, "(stipn)" or something like that. The document is paused, and I can't unpause it, so all the other print jobs pile up behind it. What can I do?

I tried the lprm -a all command, but it says there are no printers installed !?!?

thanks!

Alejandro

Re: Purge printer spool
« Reply #1 on: April 25, 2001, 07:10:10 PM »
You can check :   /var/spool/lpd/yourprintername and delete manually the job.....
Or just uninstall and reinstall the printer,
Sorry for my prehystorical way of unstucking a pool but is the only way I've found. I posted twice on this subject but as there  was no answer I suposed it was an inproper config of my printers
(HP DesignJet 350c ,canon bjc7000 and canon bj200-ex)
At least I'm not alone!
;-)
Alejandro

Phil

Re: Purge printer spool
« Reply #2 on: April 25, 2001, 10:46:56 PM »
Ah, you're not the only one in the dark - thanks for giving me some advice!  Now, how do I purge the spool in /var/spool/lpd/lw360 or restart the spool? I get a listing of a bunch of logs?

I tried deleting and reinstalling the printer in e-smith manager, but up pops up that the two documents that are in the queue all over again! Wierd, eh? The thing is - how come Windows clients can't print, but my Mac can?

Also, since you have several printers on your machine, I assume you have some sort of parallel port expansion card system? Which ones are you using? I'm thinking of throwing on an Epson FX-80 to print labels... thanks!

Alejandro

Re: Purge printer spool
« Reply #3 on: April 26, 2001, 01:24:02 AM »
Phil wrote:
I will try to give some answers
>
> Ah, you're not the only one in the dark - thanks for giving
> me some advice!  Now, how do I purge the spool in
> /var/spool/lpd/lw360 or restart the spool? I get a listing of
> a bunch of logs?
you should consider it as an emergency queue stop
There are 4 files that are generated first time priter is used,
they are: lpq; lpq.0; "your-printer-name"; "unspooler.your-printer-name"
 so deleting those files could be safe? I really don't know, but It really stops the pending jobs (if a developer reads this, probably would kill me in a second) but I warned, is a "cromagnon" method to stop a print job deleting all files would be a data loosing method
as you are deleting the logs and activity files that could be usefull for traking and stats of a print spool (thats why they're there, I think)
>
> I tried deleting and reinstalling the printer in e-smith
> manager, but up pops up that the two documents that are in
> the queue all over again! Wierd, eh?

This is because some files are not deleted (probably for security reasons as you're deleting something that could not be able to print again) so, you could change the name of the printer, when you create the new one, and it's files would be created in a different folder

> The thing is - how come
> Windows clients can't print, but my Mac can?
Some printers have bidirectional comunications as you are not printing straight in your hardware port,  disabling it sometimes helps (I don't know if its true for aple laserwriter)
>
> Also, since you have several printers on your machine, I
> assume you have some sort of parallel port expansion card
> system? Which ones are you using? I'm thinking of throwing on
> an Epson FX-80 to print labels... thanks!

Yes, you're right, I have a two parallel ports add-on card on my box, the brand does not matter much (at least for the factory, as they didn't stamp any sign on it ;-))
the only important thing here is take a look to the resources in use by your bios without the add-on card, write down in a paper and try to set jumpers on the card not to conflict with them,
then, place the card in an apriopriate slot and e-smith will recognize everything without any difficultyat boot time.
you will get lpt1 as port 0 lpt2 as port 1 and so on....
Easy?    I think so! ;-)
hope being helpfull
Alejandro

Alejandro Lengua

Re: Purge printer spool
« Reply #4 on: October 20, 2003, 11:46:27 PM »
I recently run in a similar problem.
The solution was erase the shared printer from SME Server-Manager
and create it again.

BTW there is available a contrib that helps you managing the printer queue
sometimes.