[5351] in Athena Bugs
vax 7.0F: printers
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (vjames@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Fri Jun 29 11:39:09 1990
From: vjames@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
To: bugs@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 90 11:34:59 EDT
System name: m33-222-2
Type and version: CVAXSTAR 7.0F
Display type: SM
This is the text of an olc question that I sent:
Hello, I am in 33-212. The printer daedalus went down yesterday, and
had a fan replaced.
This question has to do with an apparent software bug that handles the
printer queue.
When the printer went down, some users were able to send jobs to the
queue. The first job in the list is a postscript job. It has
zero bytes in it. It is also not being processed. This leads me to
believe that the printer is waiting for the user's computer to
send additional information as the postscript job was processed.
Since the printer was down, I think the printer refused to accept the
postscript (since it needs to be processed immediately by the printer).
But, since the queue was reserved for the postscript job, it is not able
to be freed until the job is complete. Since the user has logged out,
there is no way to complete the job. So, the printer is
waiting for a job that can never come, and will not print out any
further jobs.
The questions are:
1. Can someone delete the dummy printer job to free up the queue ?
2. How can this bug be sent to those who are in charge of maintaining
the printer software ?
What were you trying to do?
I was trying to print out a file.
What's wrong:
The printer is stuck while waiting for postscript data.
What should have happened:
The printer queue should have timed out, and gone on to
the next entry, while giving a message to the user who timed out.
Please describe any relevant documentation references:
