Re: Wireless Zebra QL22O Printers sometimes get stuck on SND status

This makes a lot of sense.
It may take both a more reliable wireless, plus a monitor pgm to hold/release spools that get stuck.
Jim Franz

----- Original Message ----- From: "Burns, Bryan" <Bryan_Burns@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2011 4:23 PM
Subject: RE: Wireless Zebra QL22O Printers sometimes get stuck on SND status

Jay,

We've encountered the same issue with our Zebra QL420 printers whereby a
spooled file will remain in SND status, and we just put the file on hold
and then release it; which is less involved than your approach.

And for what it's worth, last year I opened a support call with IBM to
rule out the IBM system here's what they found:

"I looked at the TCP/IP comm trace to see what was going on between the
last spooled file sent on Friday 08/13/10 and the first spooled file
sent this morning. I found that the remote writer sent the print data
and control file and received the x'00' return code from the printer for
both. The writer sent an ACK PSH FIN to close the connection, the
printer responded back with an ACK and then an ACK FIN, and then the
writer responded back with a final ACK PSH.

The next thing in the trace between the iSeries system and the printer
(192.168.1.102) was on 08/14/10 at 07:06:11 when the writer sent a SYN
to open a new connection. The writer sent two more SYN requests (at
07:06:14 and 07:06:20) before the printer responded back with an ACK SYN
to accept the new connection. The writer send a request for the PORTLF1
print queue and the printer sent back an ACK to acknowledge the frame,
but did not send back a x'00' return code to accept the PORTLF1 print
queue name.

The next thing in the trace involving printer IP address 192.168.1.102
was on 08/16/10 at 07:54:13 when the writer sent a couple ACK PSH FIN
frames to close the connection that it had opened on 08/14/10 at
07:06:11 -- presumably when the spooled file was put on hold to allow
other spooled files to print. The remote writer had waited more than 2
days for the printer to send back the x'00' return code that it needed
before sending the print data.

I checked with our IBM i Print Subject-Matter Expert (SME) and he said
that the remote writer will wait indefinitely anytime that it is waiting
for a x'00' return code, for instance after sending the LPR queue name,
after sending the print data and after sending the control file. In
this case, the writer waited until someone put the spooled file on hold
more than 48 hours after attempting to send that spooled file."

So in a nutshell, the file remains in SND status because the remote
writer is waiting for a x '00' return code.

Hope this helps.

Plug: IBM's support is outstanding.

Bryan







-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jernigan, John
(Jay)
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2011 8:07 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: Wireless Zebra QL22O Printers sometimes get stuck on SND
status

Thanks for the information. The Ql220 does support ZPL. I will try
changing the settings you mentioned below and see if it makes a
difference. We do not have zebra print manager. We just created remote
outq's for each printer on the AS400 and we did download the config.sys
file you mentioned below. And we have installed the latest firmware
updates.

The problem seems to be in certain areas our wireless has some
interference issues that is causing a break in the connection. When
this happens the spool file gets stuck in the SND status and the only
way to get it going again is to clear the outq and stop and start the
remote writer back. I was hoping there was some setting that would
sense the disconnect and reset the connection automatically. Some areas
work better than others. We have our wireless vendor do a study to see
if they see any issues with the wireless.

Thanks for the response I will try what you suggested below. And I
will check out the zebra print manager and see if that can help us.


Jay Jernigan

Alamance Regional Medical Center
Sr Financial Systems Analyst
jjernigan@xxxxxxxx
336-538-8299

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