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Restarting printers that use overlays

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  • Restarting printers that use overlays

    For some reason we have to restart printers that print overlays after each IPL. Not a huge deal but it always comes up to bite us, some one adds a new printer or we start using a printer for overlays that did not previously. Just curious to know if anyone had run into this before.

  • #2
    Re: Restarting printers that use overlays

    So, regardless of the fact that the printer device is configured to be online at IPL it's not? First place I would start digging is QHST and see what messages are out there for a printer that was previously working and is now not started.

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    • #3
      Re: Restarting printers that use overlays

      The printer is online after an IPL but if we try to print an overlay to it without first restarting it, the overlay will not print. Restart the printer and then the overlay starts working.

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      • #4
        Re: Restarting printers that use overlays

        Just for clarification, you have to restart the printer device on the IBM i or you have to restart the actual printer itself?

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        • #5
          Re: Restarting printers that use overlays

          We have to restart the device on the system.

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          • #6
            Re: Restarting printers that use overlays

            I guess I haven't seen this specific problem at least as it's tied to overlays specifically. I have seen printers and printer devices need a restart after an IPL in order to print. For that matter, sometimes network issues can cause enough of a disruption for this to occur as well. But I have never seen a printer do that strictly related to whether or not it was printing overlays.

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            • #7
              Re: Restarting printers that use overlays

              I've never heard of this before.

              The IPL stops all devices and print writers every time it IPLs. If they are set as "online at IPL" it also restarts them. It seems very strange that you would have to restart them manually as well... but, I guess this could be a timing thing? Maybe it's restarting them during the IPL process before the network is fully available? That would explain why they must be manually restarted later.

              But, how could that possibly be related to overlays? Why would printing an overlay have any impact at all on whether the printer has to be started differently?

              Do you change something about the printer when you start printing overlays? If so, that might be the reason why. But, I guess, I'm assuming that you aren't reconfiguring the printer or anything, you're just printing an overlay and it's causing something to work differently -- and that makes absolutely no sense at all to me.

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              • #8
                Re: Restarting printers that use overlays

                I agree does not make a lot of sense, apparently it has been happening for a while and few have taken a crack at it and come to the same conclusion. The timing of the writers starting on the IPL is when something is not available. Not sure about the network part though or how to determine that, could it be that we run an iasp? The overlays are in the iasp but the printers are in sysbase. I understand the basics of an iasp but not a deep understanding.

                We aren't changing anything on the restart all we do is endwtr strprtwtr and everything starts working smoothly.

                It prints other afpds data (barcodes, special fonts) fine but just the overlays have an issue. Some of the overlays are tied to the printer file attributes and some are assigned in the record format.

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                • #9
                  Re: Restarting printers that use overlays

                  Looks like the asp is causing the issue, though I can't find anything on the error message. We get these on printers that have not been restarted.

                  CPD34CC

                  Message . . . . : Correct AFPDS resources may not be returned.
                  Cause . . . . . : The ASP group IASP1 of the file NEZ0438$ number 10 for job
                  941948/TAMMYO/SWANDFT created on system SWAN400 on 01/22/16 08:18:31 is not
                  the same as the ASP group of the current job or thread. The API could
                  return references to one or more AFPDS resources that were not the AFPDS
                  resources the spooled file was created with.
                  Recovery . . . : Set the current job or thread to the ASP group of the
                  spooled file and call the API again.

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                  • #10
                    Re: Restarting printers that use overlays

                    Some interesting stuff in here:



                    Cheers,

                    Emmanuel

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                    • #11
                      Re: Restarting printers that use overlays

                      We took the start up of qspl out of the regular startup and moved it to our second start up program that we run after the asp is up. We will see if that fixes the issue. Thanks for the help.

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                      • #12
                        Re: Restarting printers that use overlays

                        I think that's a good solution. If the print files that are tied to the overlays are in that ASP that could definitely be a problem.

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                        • #13
                          Re: Restarting printers that use overlays

                          Oh, I see... yeah, if there are spooled files all ready to print when the system comes up and they refer to objects in an ASP that isn't available, yeah, that could certainly cause a problem. It didn't occur to me that you might have files ready to print as soon as the system comes up from an IPL

                          So really, this not exactly about overlays, it's about ANY object that's in an IASP that isn't available. Could be overlays, page segments, fonts, or any AFPDS/IPDS resource that's in an IASP that isn't yet available.

                          Sounds like you're on the right track.

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                          • #14
                            Re: Restarting printers that use overlays

                            Just for clarification it is not existing spool files. If the writer is started before the asp is available it will continue to have issues for any spool file generated after.

                            I am guessing because the first user profile we use is not associated with the asp as it is not available and it started all the writers they have an issue using resources available in the asp even after the asp is available. I noticed on the writers that have been restarted the first message in its job log is ASP group set to IASP1. The writers that have not been restarted and have the issue don't have this message.

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                            • #15
                              Re: Restarting printers that use overlays

                              Even if no spooled files reference the iASP?
                              Tom

                              There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation, naming things and off-by-one errors.

                              Why is it that all of the instruments seeking intelligent life in the universe are pointed away from Earth?

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