Jim Hogan
2005-Aug-05 18:27 UTC
[Samba] Samba/CUPS printer queue troubleshooting guide (XP clients)?
We have a printing reliability problem with Samba printers/queues and we are trying to figure out how to troubleshoot it more methodically. Situation: We've been running Samba 3.x (always current/latest) for over a year with primarily Windows 2000 clients. This summer we are converting our 100 Win2K PCs to XP; this conversion is nearly complete. Our Samba printing is CUPS-based to HP Laserjets (4000-4200 series) with CUPS queuses configured to address the HPs as LPD queues. Printing-related snips from SMB.CONF are as follows: printcap name = cups printing = cups [print$] comment = Printer Drivers path = /etc/samba/drivers browseable = yes guest ok = yes read only = yes write list = root create mask = 0775 [printers] comment = All Printers path = /var/spool/samba browseable = yes public = yes writable = no printable = yes printer admin = root We realized that we needed to push updated, XP-capable drivers for some of our 8-9 printers/queues (we did this via the Windows Print Properties dialogues as Windows root). Overall, printing is working. However, we have had more occasions where printing stalls in the queue -- we get a phone call, look in a Windows print queue and see 2-3 docs stuck, going nowhere. In several cases we could not (as root) delete these and the ultimate maneuver to clear the queue was: 1) shutdown samba 2) move/delete the /var/lib/samba/printing/printername.tdb file for that queue 3) restart samba This doesn't seem like the best solution :) We rescently upgraded firmware+memory on several of the HPs to resolve problems printing some PDFs, but documents now getting stuck are of all types (DOC, PDF, XLS) and of all sizes -- from 1 to 40 pages. What I am looking for are some diagnostic steps we can take to see where the trouble lies -- is it Windows clients not releasing print jobs to Samba? Is it problems with spooling in CUPS? (we are at CUPS 1.1.22). Any pointers to a FAQ or troubleshooting guide appreciated (or any other observations!) Thanks, Jim