[5374] in Athena Bugs
vax 7.0F: printers
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Mon Jul 2 12:41:47 1990
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 90 12:41:29 -0400
From: "Jonathan I. Kamens" <jik@pit-manager.MIT.EDU>
To: vjames@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Cc: bugs@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: bugs[5351]
From: vjames@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
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).
First of all, the scenario you suggested does not provide enough
evidence or information for us to be able to conclude that "the
printer is waiting for the user's computer to send additional
information as the postscript job was processed."
Your suggested explanation is unlikely, for two main reasons. First
of all, the way the print server software is designed, jobs do not
appear in the queue until they have completely sent from the client
machine to the print server. Second, the print server never required
the client machine to "send additional information" once the job has
been transferred to the server.
Also, it is not true that postscript "needs to be processed
immediately by the printer;" postscript jobs can sit in the printer
queue for a long period of time before the printer itself ever sees
them or knows of their existence.
It seems to me that the problem is much simpler than what you
described -- whomever fixed the printer forgot to reset the queue
after it was fixed, so the server did not start communicating properly
with the printer again.
In any case, thank you for reporting the problem.
Jonathan Kamens
Project Athena Quality Assurance
