Non-blocking Print Queues

[Ka Lim]

Dear Kurt,

Thanks for your information.  You are right that jobs in other queues would be okay if I disable the queue(s) to the problematic printer.  However, do you think it is possible to set CUPS such that either:

(1) Problematic queues would be automatically disabled; or
(2) [Preferred way to (1)] the queues simply operate independently, i.e. even if a job is sent to a problematic queue, it would not be blocking jobs that are sent to other queues;

Thanks in advance!

> > Ka Lim wrote:
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > I am using cups 1.1.17 on Redhat and Fedora boxes, and have configured a number of print queues for different printers in my company's network.  However, I found that if one of the printers goes wrong (e.g. paper jam, go offline, network problem), all other print jobs would also be blocked in the cups spooler.  Is it possible to configure cups so that different print queues would be working independently?
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance.
> >
> > Cups itself has no such feature in the 1.1.x branch,
>
> Not entirely correct.
>
> If *one* queue is (auto-)disable, this should not affect the other
> queues and should not block the complete server. Not even in CUPS
> 1.1.x.
>
> *IF* such a thing happens, it is a different problem.
>
> But which?
>
> If *I* had this problem with a CUPS 1.1.17 version (which is more than
> 4 years old!), I'd do three things:
>
>   FIRST, check the Release Notes on http://www.cups.org/relnotes.php
>          for any indication of similar problems having been noticed and
>          fixed in releases from 1.1.18 and later
>   SECOND, increase "LogLevel" to "debug" and study what the error_log
>          has to say when this happens, and when a new job is sent
>   THIRD, install a newer version (if 1.2.x is too revolutionary, I'd go
>          for the last 1.1.x release [1.1.23]) and that surely will help
>          overcome that particular problem.
>
> > but this is available in the 1.2.x branch... There is a way to do
> > this in 1.1.x, by adding the 'beh' backend error handler.
> >
> > You can find more about this at:
> > http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/OpenPrinting/Database/BackendErrorHandler
> >
> > Good luck!
> >
> > Aukjan
>