How to check "faulty" or "stalled" print queues - SAP systems?

Hi all,

First off, sorry for a long post but I think I have no other option if I need to explain properly what I need help for.

I need some advise on how best to check for "faulty" or "stalled/jammed' print queues. At the moment, I have three (3) application servers which also acts as print servers, there is roughly about 50-100 print queues for each server which is supposedly "normal" for SAP systems. Anyone who had been supporting SAP system will surely know what am talking about ... :wink:

The primary help that am looking for is what is the best and quickest way to check what print queues are stalled and disabled. I've run lpc status but there does not seem to be any option to tell lpc to display only those where queueing is disabled or printing is disabled or where there are >10 entries in the queue ... :frowning:

Not all the print queues are faulty only some of them are and am getting intermittent errors as below:

        Message from lp on vsyexhsxz03 (???) [ Thu Jul 15 22:44:56 ] ...
Subject: Problem with printer J611

The printer J611 has stopped printing for the reason given below.
Fix the problem and bring the printer back on line.
Printing has stopped, but will be restarted in a few minutes;
issue an enable command if you want to restart sooner.
Unless someone issues a change request

        lp -i J611-19188 -P ...

to change the page list to print, the current request will be reprinted from
the beginning.

The reason(s) it stopped (multiple reasons indicate repeated attempts):

exec exit fault<EOT>

These messages goes on and on and on when I login to the console. A quick check on one of the printer queues using lpc status reveals that there are 375 items. Not sure how much the other ones have.

# lpc status J869
J869:
        queueing is enabled
        printing is enabled
        375 entries in spool area
        daemon present
#

I cannot easily say what printer queues are having problems as /var/lp/logs/lpsched does not contain the print queue that is having problems.

At the moment, what am thinking of is writing a script that run lpc status <printer_queue> and then grep for entries in spool are and if it is greater than zero then I will consider that there is an "error" and I will have to check if printing is enabled/disabled or queue is enabled/disabled. But I am not sure where are my print queues? Are my print queues everything that is in /etc/lp/printers?

Another way that I am looking at checking for printer problem is checking the directory /var/spool/lp/requests/localhost or /var/spool/lp/tmp/localhost and if there are lots of entries there then that means I am having printer issues is this correct?

Can I just delete all the files in /var/spool/lp/requests/localhost and /var/spool/lp/tmp/localhost and have the users re-submit their print job?

BTW, checking one of the print job, 59630

The /var/spool/lp/requests/localhost/59630-0 file contains the following:

# cat 59630-0
J844-59630
40001  ==> what is this
sp1adm
40001 ==> what is this
1876 ==> what is this
1276834311 ==> what is this
none

And the /var/spool/lp/tmp/localhost/59630-0 file contains the following:

# cat 59630-0
C 1
D J844
F /var/spool/lp/tmp/localhost/59630-1
O nobanner
P 20
T 59630-1
t simple
U sp1adm
s   0000
#

I can work out what some of the information means, like J844 is the print queue, sp1adm is the user who submitted the queue but I don't know what the other information means. Does anyone know where is it documented on what these other information means, i.e. if they are at all important toward resolving my print queue problems.

Sorry for the long post and hoping for any feedback. Thanks in advance.