JetDirect

[Johan Meiring]

Hi,

WOW, this was posted over a year ago!  A response now.

The problem still exists.  As reconfirmed in a post i read not to long ago
(within the last 2 weeks?).  HP jetdirect cards can only do one thing at a
time. (HP has been writing Jetdirect firmware for 5 years, PLEASE HP you
_MUST_ have the ability to fix it?!  Or don't you??)

This can be confirmed if you have an NT only shop.  In the NT event log,
talking to a Jetdirect card, you will find loads of messages stating
somthing similar to:  "Cannot connect to printer, will try until it is
available"  (Message from memory, so it might be worded incorrectly).

In samba, it requests the printer queue from the operating system using the
lpq/(other variant) command.  It will wait for this to complete until it
returns the result to the calling application. (Win 95)

Solutions are as follows:

1)  HP should fix their Jetdirect cards (Do you know how to HP?)

2)  The *NIX vendors should modify their lpq/(or variant) to include a
switch to list only the locally queued jobs.  (The unfortunate thing about
this is that you will not see the job currently printing, but at least you
won't see a 'hang')

3)  Samba should be modified to 'cache' a previous lpq output, and update it
when lpq returns,  maybe a daomon that calls lpq every 20 seconds and cache
the output to supply to clients.  I realize that this option is stupid, but
maybe the only way. How does NT do it?

4)  Go on holiday and stop printing :-) (I need one badly!)

Hope this helps.  Flames, comments, etc...  welcome. (I Think)

Johan

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Greg Cox [mailto:greg.cox at meltonmachine.com]
> Sent: Friday, May 07, 1999 4:03 PM
> To: jjm at iname.com
> Subject: JetDirect
>
>
> So, is there any way around this "hanging" problem????
>
> RE: Win'95 printer lock-ups & filters
>
> Johan Meiring (jjm at iname.com)
> Thu, 16 Apr 1998 10:37:51 +0100
>
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> From:   "Johan Meiring" <jjm at iname.com>
> To:     <esisler at ares.csd.net>
> Subject: RE: Win'95 printer lock-ups & filters
> Date:   Thu, 16 Apr 1998 10:37:51 +0100
> Message-Id: <19980416094457Z12614840-456+5846 at samba.anu.edu.au>
>
> HI,
>
> The problem is that HP Jetdirect boxes/cards can not give back
> information
> on the print queue, while receiving a job. The lpq command on the UNIX
> server then 'hangs' while trying to retrieve this info. The W95
> workstation then 'hangs' while waiting for this info.
>
> This has always been a problem with HP Jetdirect cards, they seem to be
> not
> 'multithreaded' and can only do one TCP/IP job at a time.
>
> Suggestion 1: Maybe samba could be altered to not wait for lpq to
> complete, and pass back blank queue info to the Workstation while it
> waits
> for lpq to complete.
>
> Suggestion 2: As this problem with HP Jetdirect cards do not exist with
> the DLC protocol, maybe someone could write a DLC spooler for UNIX/Linux
> :-)
>
> Johan Meiring
>
> >Printer lock-ups:
> >I have some printer shares available on my Samba server (RedHat Linux
> >kernel 2.0.32, Samba 1.9.18p3) and they are working just fine in most
> >cases, but from time to time the Win '95 client will either lock up while
> >printing or send a print job samba & lpd don't like and it will
> completely
> >hose the printer, to the point where I have to clear the queue and
> >sometimes physically reset the print server attached to the printer. I
> >can't even telnet to the print server when this happens. Most of the
> >printers are HP LaserJet 4's & 6's connected via external or internal
> >JetDirect print servers. What is unclear to me is why this is happening.
> >I suspect Win '95 is the culprit and if this is just SOP while running
> >networked printers I'll live with it, but I want to make sure I haven't
> >missed anything.
> >
> [cut]
> >
> >Thanks in advance for any advice.
> >
> >Eric Sisler
> >esisler at ares.csd.net
>
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