Conference lassie::ucx

5189.0. "LPD printing to laserjet gets SYSTEM-F-REJECT sometimes" by UCXAXP::ZIELONKO () Mon Feb 03 1997 10:58

This information is from the UCX usenet newsgroup. It is provided as an FYI:

From: "Greg Cordes" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: LPD errors printing to HP Jetdirect cards?
Newsgroups: vmsnet.networks.tcp-ip.ucx
References: <[email protected]>
Organization: Carter Holt Harvey Pty Ltd
Message-ID: <01bc0dce$92530670$983517cb@chh0161>
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[email protected] wrote in article <[email protected]>...
> Does anyone know why when LPD printing to an HP Jetdirect card, you 
> get "SYSTEM-F-REJECT, connect to network object rejected" errors when
> multiple jobs are sent in quick succession? It's only an inconvenience
> because the jobs automatically hold for a few minutes so they print
> eventually.
> 
> It seems to me that the Jetdirect cards aren't handling queuing properly.
> Anyone have any more intelligent suggestions?
> 
> Thanks
> Nick Wykes
> Fletcher Challenge Forests Ltd
> Rotorua
> New Zealand
> [email protected]
> 

Hi Nick -  I fear you may be "the opposition" but bugger it, I'll help out
if I can! :-)

We have experienced the same problem here.  I originally assumed it was a
bug in UCX, but we cleared up many of the problems after our network
manager spent some time at HP's web site.  He uncovered a JetDirect
firmware upgrade, the release notes for which seemed to describe type of
problem.  He installed the upgrade to bring the cards up to firmware
revision A.05.05 (the version appears on the printer self test page).  To
do the upgrade you use JetAdmin with the HP Download Manager, plus the
upgraded firmware file.

I think the problem relates to the fact that JetDirect cards do not spool
incoming lpd requests in the way that a proper host machine running an lpd
daemon would (for obvious reasons - they don't have any mass storage!). 
Therefore while a single connection is open, a card running the earlier
firmware would reject further connect requests.

Anyway, they reject much more gracefully now!  The problem still surfaces
if you really flood the queue though...

Also, we have found that the problem persists if you attempt to send large
print jobs (e.g. a couple of meg) with a high latency network link between
the lpd client and the printer.  e.g. We tried to send large jobs from
ucx/lpd on our VAX directly to a JetDirect printer 500km away over 64kbps
ISDN - didn't work too well!  However, setting the idle timeout on the card
to something reasonably large e.g. 90 secs does help a bit.

In the latter case using lpd remotely, our solution was to use reverse
telnet instead, i.e. use the ucx$telnetsym symbiont printing to tcp port
9100 on the card.  Of course, if we had had a suitable print server machine
at the remote site we could have spooled through that.

I should add that I have been referring to INTERNAL JetDirect cards.  I
believe the external JetDirect devices (which are effectively a parallel
port-to-ethernet interface) can only be upgraded by replacing the firmware
chip.

Sorry for the long-winded response - hope it helps!

Greg Cordes
Systems Manager
Carter Holt Harvey Timber Australia
[email protected]


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