lp hang

Cause

On a print server, the queue continues to grow but nothing comes out of the printer. The printer daemon is hung.

Action

Here is a simple procedure for flushing a hung printing queue: 1. Login or switch user to root; 2. Issue the reject(1M) printername command to make sure no one sends any job to the printer; 3. Turn off power to the printer; 4. If the active job appears to be causing the hang, remove it from the print queue with the cancel(1) jobnumber command, and ask the owner to requeue that print job; 5. Shut down the print queue with the /usr/lib/lpshut command; 6. Remove the lock file /var/spool/lp/SCHEDLOCK and the temporary files /var/spool/lp/tmp/*/*; 7. Turn the printer back on; 8. Restart the print queue with the /usr/lib/lpsched command.

See Also

For more information on print queuing, see the System Administration Guide, Volume II. If you are using the AnswerBook, "print server" is a good search string.