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We have a remote print queue that occasionally (actually, about once/
day) goes down and we cannot delete the first job in the queue. I
found that the problem is a file, dead.letter, that exists in the /var/
spool/lpd/qdir directory. If I move this file from that directory, I
can delete the job from the queue and the printer continues printing.

The contents of this file are as follows:

Message from queueing
system:
=====> MESSAGE FROM PRINT JOB -1 ()
<=====
0782-024 The piobe command must be invoked only by the
spooler's
qdaemon. It is dependent on services provided by the qdaemon
and
cannot run without them. To cause the qdaemon to invoke
piobe, refer
to the qprt, lp, lpr, and enq
commands.

Can anyone explain what causes this, and what I can do to prevent it
from happening?

Additional information: This printer is rather unique, for some
undetermined reason. It's a Xerox WorkCenter M20i. I have a couple
dozen printers defined on this AIX server, all defined using port
9100, except this one. When I define it just like the others, it will
print text, but not PostScript. If I define it as a remote LPD
printer, it will print PostScript, but it goes down a lot and has to
be manually restarted, an occasionally develops the symptom described
above. Xerox doesn't have an answer for me. Just wondering if anyone
has any insights or suggestions.

<robert.macnutt@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:01b8eb77-3027-4d9d-bfed-d66d98ca789c@w4g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
> We have a remote print queue that occasionally (actually, about once/
> day) goes down and we cannot delete the first job in the queue. I
> found that the problem is a file, dead.letter, that exists in the /var/
> spool/lpd/qdir directory. If I move this file from that directory, I
> can delete the job from the queue and the printer continues printing.
>
> Can anyone explain what causes this, and what I can do to prevent it
> from happening?

dead.letter is created when creating a mail (with mail or rmail) is
interrupted. It is created in the current directory which for the spooler
is apparently the qdir directory.

> Additional information: This printer is rather unique, for some
> undetermined reason. It's a Xerox WorkCenter M20i. I have a couple
> dozen printers defined on this AIX server, all defined using port
> 9100, except this one. When I define it just like the others, it will
> print text, but not PostScript. If I define it as a remote LPD
> printer, it will print PostScript, but it goes down a lot and has to
> be manually restarted, an occasionally develops the symptom described
> above. Xerox doesn't have an answer for me. Just wondering if anyone
> has any insights or suggestions.

Set up the queue as a PostScript virtual printer with smit mkpq. If you
want to turn off any and all formatting the queue does, do this:

lsvirprt
select queue
_d=p
_j=!
_J=!

With a remote queue to the printer's LPD daemon, you can try to increase the
printer time-out period by appending a -T60 to the backend line in
/etc/qconfig. That may reduce the frequency of this error but I think
you're better off to avoid the lpr/lpd and get the formatting working so
that your PostScript prints when you set up this queue like all the others
and then tweak the virtual printer settings.

Best regards,
Paul