Managing printers and print jobs

Setting up printer fault alerts

The print service provides a method for detecting and alerting you to printer faults. Faults can range from simple problems, such as running out of paper, ribbon, or toner, to more serious faults, such as a local power failure or printer failure. The range of fault indicators is also broad, ranging from dropping the carrier (the signal that indicates that the printer is online) to sending an XOFF or a message.

The print service itself only recognizes two classes of printer fault indicators: ``hangups'' (a loss of carrier) and excessive delays in printing (an XOFF flow-control character without a matching XON). For faults other than these, the printer service cannot determine the cause of the fault, so it cannot alert you. However, you can add filters that can detect other printer faults and inform the print service, which in turn alerts you. See ``Detecting printer fault indicators with filters''.

To set up printer fault alerts for a printer in the Printer Manager:

Select the printer from the list.
Select Advanced from the Settings menu, then select Faults.
Select the ``Fault Recovery'' method. See ``Specifying the print fault recovery method''.
Select the ``Notification Method'' (how or if the print service alerts you when an error occurs):

No notification
Specifies that the print service not send any alerts when a fault occurs.
NOTE: If you elect to receive no alerts, you need a way of finding out about the faults and fixing them; the print service does not continue to use a printer that has a fault.

Quiet current fault notification
Once a fault occurs and you start receiving repeated fault alerts, directs the print service to stop sending alerts.

Execute command
Specifies that the print service run a command for each fault alert. Enter the command to run in the ``Command'' field.
The print service runs the command you specify using the shell environment currently in effect when you start the Printer Manager. This environment includes environment variables, user and group IDs, and the current directory.

Write to screen
Specifies that the print service write a message to your terminal. See the write(C) manual page.

Mail administrator
Specifies that the print service send electronic mail to the print service administrator. See the mail(C) manual page.
Specify the ``Frequency'' (the number of minutes between repeated alerts). To receive only one alert for each fault that the print service detects, select Once.

Without a filter that provides better fault detection, the print service cannot automatically determine when a fault has been cleared except by trying to print another file. The print service assumes that a fault is cleared when it successfully prints a file. Until that time, if you have requested only one alert per fault, you do not receive another alert.

If, after you have fixed a fault but before the print service tries to print another file, the printer faults again or if your attempt to fix the fault did not succeed, you are not notified. Receiving repeated alerts per fault or requiring manual reenabling of the printer overcomes the problem. Refer to ``Specifying the print fault recovery method'' for more information.

Specifying the print fault recovery method

To specify how the print service recovers once the printer is ready for printing again after detecting a printer fault, in the Printer Manager select Advanced from the Settings menu, then select Faults. Choose the ``Fault Recovery'' method:

Disable printing

Disables the printer until the administrator reenables the printer.

Restart current job

Restarts printing at the beginning of the print job that was active when the fault occurred.

Continue with current page

Continues printing at the top of the page where printing stopped.

NOTE: This method requires a filter that can wait for a printer fault to be cleared before resuming properly. The default filter that the print service uses cannot do this.

If the recovery method is Continue with current page, but the interface program does not continue running and therefore cannot detect when the printer fault was cleared, the print service attempts to print every few minutes until it succeeds. You can force the print service to retry immediately by reenabling the printer. See ``Enabling and disabling printers''.

If you do not specify how the print service is to resume after a printer fault, the print service tries to continue at the top of the page where printing stopped (if the appropriate filter exists). Failing that, the print service restarts printing at the beginning of the print job.

Alerting to mount forms and font cartridges

If you have printers that accept changeable font cartridges and you have listed the font cartridges allowed on each, users can submit a print request to use a particular font cartridge. However, if the font cartridge is not mounted when a user requests to use it, the job waits in the queue until you mount the font cartridge. See ``Specifying font cartridges to use with a printer''. If a form (or font cartridge or print wheel) is not mounted when you print a file and specify that form, the job waits in the queue until you mount the appropriate form. See ``Mounting and unmounting forms''.

In these cases, you might want to set up the print system to alert you when you need to mount a form. You can specify that you are to receive alerts when the number of requests waiting for a font cartridge or form exceeds some threshold.

To arrange for alerting to the need to mount a form, enter:

/usr/lib/lpforms -f form_name -A alert_method -Q number -W minutes

alert_method: alerting method to use (mail or write)
number: number of waiting requests to restart alerting
minutes: number of minutes between alerts

For example, to direct the print service to send electronic mail alerts every 5 minutes whenever the printer queue contains 2 or more requests for the check form and it is not already mounted, enter:

/usr/lib/lpforms -f check -A mail -Q 2 -W 5

To arrange for alerting to the need to mount a font cartridge, enter:

/usr/lib/lpadmin -S font_cartridge_name -A alert_method -Q number -W minutes

For example, to direct the print service to write alerts to your terminal every 2 minutes whenever the printer queue contains three or more requests for the dingbat font cartridge and it is not already mounted, enter:

/usr/lib/lpadmin -S dingbat -A write -Q 3 -W 2

To arrange for alerting whenever the queue contains requests for any form or font cartridge (print wheel), enter one of the following:

/usr/lib/lpforms -f any -A mail -W 5

/usr/lib/lpadmin -S any -A mail -W 5

To stop receiving alert messages to mount a form, font cartridge, or print wheel, enter one of the following:

/usr/lib/lpforms -f form_name -A quiet

/usr/lib/lpadmin -S font_cartridge_name -A quiet

/usr/lib/lpadmin -S printwheel_name -A quiet

To remove alerting when a form, font cartridge, or print wheel needs to be mounted, enter one of the following:

/usr/lib/lpforms -f form_name -A none

/usr/lib/lpadmin -S font_cartridge_name -A none

/usr/lib/lpadmin -S printwheel_name -A none

If you do not define an alert method for a form, font cartridge, or print wheel, you do not receive an alert for it. If you define a method, but do not define the number of minutes between alerts (with the -W option), you receive one alert for each occasion.