Guide to Printers and Printing

Chapter 5. Troubleshooting the Base Operating System Spooler

Use the information in the following checklists to help resolve printing problems.

• Local Printer Checklist
• Inoperative Printer Checklist
• Remote Printer Checklist
• Adapter Considerations
• Printing Problems When the var File System is Full
• Terminal-Attached Printer Checklist
• Considerations for 8-Bit Printer Attached to 7-Bit Interface
• qdaemon Checklist
• Queuing System Problems
• Testing the qdaemon
• Testing a Spooler Queue
• Copying Spooled Jobs
• Cleaning Up and Starting Over

Troubleshooting the base operating system spooler can be done by tracking a spooler job through the spooler. A job submitted to the base operating system spooler moves from one spooler component to another in a predictable fashion. The movement is entirely dependent upon the spooler queue configuration, especially the spooler queue backend.

Note: To perform serious spooler troubleshooting, root authority is required. Users running without root authority are limited to:

• Submitting jobs to the spooler
• Sending data directly to the device driver entry point in the /dev directory
• Querying the status of spooler queues
• Changing the status (including cancelling) of spooler jobs owned by the user

  Note: This troubleshooting information assumes that you have access to a shell prompt. There are a number of front-ends to the base operating system spooler itself on the market; troubleshooting in this environment is still very possible, but if the problem lies in the command or method used to actually submit a job to the spooler, the application must provide a method for precisely determining the command or method used to submit the job to the spooler.