[hpoj-devel] Re: ptal-mlcd debug message dump

[<pa...@rc...>]

Hi, Joe.

Joe Piolunek wrote:
> I've attached the ptal-mlcd dump you asked for. 
> 
> I hadn't started ptal-printd at the time of the test.
> 'lsmod' showed none of the parport-related modules loaded.
> The final messages you said might be displayed (the 'timer pop message', 
> etc.) didn't occur the two times I obtained the dump.
Thanks for sending that.  It's too bad that the timer-pop doesn't happen
with debug output turned on, but that might point to a race condition,
possibly in the ParPort class.  What happens if you run the same test (with
debug output turned on), then say "deactivate", "nolog", and "activate"?
Does the timer pop the second time with the debug output turned off?  (The
deactivate command will print an "exClose" error message, but that's normal.)

> When I attempt to print a page through kmail or netscape, the print job 
> apparently enters the queue, but no printing occurs. The kde 'klpq' app lists 
> the print job and displays the message 'ptal-printd is ready and printing'. 
I take it you named your print queue "ptal-printd".

Is it possible that lpd is in a bad state due to an earlier print failure?
I ran into this problem while testing ptal-printd recently, and I found that
I pretty much needed to lprm the job(s) and restart lpd (and possibly
ptal-printd also, but hopefully that's no longer necessary) in order to get
things working again.

Instead of trying to print, try invoking "ptal-connect mlc:par:0 -socket 6".
This will connect to the echo service on the peripheral, and each line of
text you type should be echoed back.  Does this work at least?

> I rebuilt the hpoj package with the new redhat kernel-2.2.17-14 I just 
> installed (from RPM), but the results are the same as with my older homebuilt 
> 2.2.16 kernel.
I would expect that.

How heavily loaded is your system in terms of CPU usage?  It's theoretically
possible that the combination of a heavily-loaded system and a timeout-happy
peripheral could break things, although I've never seen this in the testing
I've done so far.

David