Technical data

DCPS Restrictions

The following sections identify the current restrictions that exist with DECprint

Supervisor. See DECprint Supervisor for OpenVMS System Manager’s Guide and

DECprint Supervisor for OpenVMS User’s Guide for printer-speciﬁc restrictions.

2.1 Job Remains in Starting State for Raw TCP/IP Queue

If you set up a DCPS queue that uses a raw TCP/IP connection and specify an

incorrect TCP port number for the printer, any print jobs that you submit to the

queue will remain in a starting state. DCPS cannot determine that you have

provided an incorrect port number, because the network failure that it receives is

no different than if the printer had been busy or ofﬂine.

Note that a print job in a raw TCP/IP queue may remain in a starting state for

other reasons as well.

Check the documentation for your printer, network interface card, print server, or

terminal server to determine the correct TCP port number to use. The TCP port

number may also be listed in Table A–1.

2.2 Connection Terminations for Raw TCP/IP Queue

You may get CONTERMINATED errors for long print jobs when using raw

TCP/IP connections. For jobs that consist of a single ﬁle or only use the native

PostScript capability of the printer (for example, they do not use native PCL),

these errors are most likely to occur at the end of the job, with job trailer pages

(if speciﬁed for the queue) and print job accounting (if enabled) being lost. For

other jobs, these errors may occur in the middle of the job, with subsequent

documents as well as the trailer pages and accounting information being lost.

DCPS requeues the terminated jobs, placing them in a Holding state so that you

can reprint them once you resolve the termination problem.

Some network devices, including the HP JetDirect cards, drop a TCP/IP

connection if they do not receive any input from the host system within a

speciﬁed amount of time. This is a feature, meant to prevent host software from

monopolizing the device. DCPS, however, waits for the printer to acknowledge

that previous documents are printed before switching from PostScript to some

other native printer language and also before printing a trailer page and

gathering accounting information. Even though the printer may be busy, the NIC

may not receive any more input from DCPS before the timeout is reached.

If your NIC allows you to alter the TCP/IP idle timeout value, you can work

around this problem by disabling or increasing the timeout. Check your NIC

documentation to determine if this is possible, and how to do it. Then release any

requeued jobs for which desired output was lost, and delete the other requeued

jobs.

DCPS Restrictions 2–1