Troubleshooting
Problem
Network Print Facility (NPF) is single threaded, and uses the Line Printer Daemon (LPR) to send out the print job. If the LPR request has not completed, NPF will not get control. As a result, NPF will not be able to send out other jobs, causing the entire NPF print queue to not be sent out.
Cause
The LPR command has not completed. This could be caused if the remote printer is not responding.
Resolving The Problem
Issue a NETSTAT CONN command to verify that NPF is hung in the LPR command. If you see a connection to the remote printer with the jobname of NPF, then this is the cause of the hang. LPR will wait as long as the TCP/IP connection exists. Issue a netstat drop command on this connection to end LPR and enable NPF to gain control.
To stop LPR from hanging, the LPR option TIMEOUT should be coded in the NPF OPTIONS file. This will cause LPR to wait 5 minutes for an ACK or NACK from the LPD printer. If the ACK or NACK does not arrive, LPR will terminate the connection with Error Number=73.
For some printers, the ACK is not returned until the job is printed. For these printers, specifying the TIMEOUT options can cause long print jobs to stop printing before completion.
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Document Information
Modified date:
15 June 2018
UID
swg21173865