[cups.general] lprm <PID> => Not all processes killed

Gene Heskett gene.heskett at verizon.net
Sun Aug 29 07:18:35 PDT 2004


On Sunday 29 August 2004 09:02, Michael Sweet wrote:
>Felix E. Klee wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> when I kill all printing jobs using lprm there still sometimes is
>> a process left accessing /dev/lp0. An example:
>>
>> root      3926  0.0  0.3  2964  700 ?        S    13:04   0:00
>> parallel:/dev/lp0 218 felix AcroHP1Omx 1 outputorder=normal
>> number-up=1 nowrap position=top-left Resolution=600dpi Duplex=None
>> PageSize=A4 InputSlot=Default noOption1
>>
>> What's the purpose of this process? Is it just to finish printing
>> the current page or will it produce more printout (I already
>> wasted enough paper and I don't have much left, so I don't want to
>> try that out)?
>
>It will finish printing the current page(s) that have been sent by
>the printer driver.  It does this to leave the printer in a
>consistent state.

Thats not the desired action Michael in 99% of the cases here.  When 
the printer has lost its init, and is doing what is essentially a hex 
dump of the raster data being sent, and that might take 5000 pages of 
paper to finish it, we should be able to kill it unconditionally, in 
its tracks so to speak.  I've been in that situation several times, 
and the only way out is to reboot which will kill that process about 
95% of the time.  I've also had to trash, over the years, several 
reams of $11 a ream paper because of this, along with a lot of ink.

Killing the process shouldn't be so hard, and as far as restoreing the 
printer to a known state, isn't that what power switches are for?

My $0.02...

-- 
Cheers, Gene
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Copyright 2004 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.





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