CS Technical FAQ

The Setup

Each computer has an individual local print queue. Print jobs are spooled to this local queue before being sent off to the printer. The printer also has a local queue where it stores jobs before printing them out.

The Problem

Unfortunately, since the recent OS upgrade, the print queues local on each computer are not as stable as we would like and they crash frequently. This results in print jobs piling up in the queue (and not printing out).

The Solution

The real solution is to make the local print queues more stable. However, while we (and the CUPS and Linux developers) work on that, we have a workaround.

The Workaround

We have given everyone the ability to delete print jobs from the local queue and to (re)enable the queue. This gives each user the ability to clear out and reset a stuck queue without involving the system adminstrators. If you print something from an instructional lab computer and it does not come out of the printer, follow these steps:

1) type "lpq" - this will print out the contents of the local computer's print queue. It will look like this:

coltrane
gslps is not ready
Rank    Owner   Job     File(s)                         Total Size
1st      kip    13      KDE Print System                927744 bytes
2nd      kip    5       Acro000vPImfk                   1770496 bytes
3rd      kip    6       rita_v11_n1_p93a124-1.pdf       431104 bytes

2) Remove the print jobs one at a time until the queue is empty. To do this type lprm <job_number> where <job_number> is the integer listed under "Job" in the "lpq" output. Here is an example:

lprm 13

This would kill the first ranked job in the queue above.

3) Once the queue is empty, re-enable it. To do this type "/usr/sbin/cupsenable <printer_name> where <printer_name> is the name of the printer found on the second line (ending with "is not ready") of the "lpq" output. This is what you would run in the given example:

/usr/sbin/cupsenable gslps

4) Check your work. Type the "lpq" command again and you should see:

gslps is ready
no entries

5) Print our your document again.