[Nottingham] Cups slow problem (printing long pause to start)

[Martin]

On 25/08/16 19:47, John via Nottingham wrote:
> Ok, at home now so will try to reply in-line using Thunderbird ...
> 
> On 25/08/16 13:01, Martin via Nottingham wrote:
>> Further thought inserted:
>>
>>
>> On 25/08/16 11:48, Martin via Nottingham wrote:
>>> On 25/08/16 10:48, John via Nottingham wrote:
>>>> The original server hadn't been patched for donkeys, so at a loss
>>>> why it
>>>> started happening
>>>
>>> OK... Different aspect to consider for what might have changed...

>>> Are you connecting via WiFi and there is newly more WiFi activity?
> Wash your mouth out :)

Quite right too! :-P


>>> And, can you see anywhere where there is high load? Or can you identify
>>> that this is some sort of network timeout you're waiting for?
> Yup. Running cups in debug mode shows cups hanging, hence the hypothesis
> it was snmp. Funnily enough, by the power of Grayskull (ok, vmware) I
> gave the server 8 cores,but cups had no better throughput.

So network or ack timeout/pause or lost data/icmp packets...?


>>> Are your thin clients themselves waiting to pull down a config file or
>>> to check the printer status as part of trying to print?
> You're getting warm (not enough for a beer though(maybe a warm beer)). I
> ended up running a remote lpstat and that was hanging for the 10 seconds
> for several thin terminals, but not for the centos / windows boxes.

For "several" but not all?...


> Don't know if it was a power surge or just old age, but several of the
> thin terminals are exhibiting printing delays. Cups (why isn't lprng
> available anymore ?) gets hung up on these. Printing a document every 5
> seconds should be a piece of piss, but enough devices hanging  causes a
> backlog which affects them all. Again, 8 cores makes no difference.
> Running a suspect device in our office was still slow. Running a Centos
> / windows box was back to full speed.

Max number of connections or max number of concurrent jobs limit getting
hit?... (With lots of dangling connections waiting to time out?)


> So I've ordered 10 shiny new Core-I3 HPs to run Putty & Lpd in the short
> term & *cough* Windaz apps in future. Just need to pore through the cups
> logs & network events to target the misbehaving machines. BTW we use a
> utility called LanToplog which is very Ronseal and has been invaluable
> in checking the network structure.

One for further discussion...

Misbehaving networking?... Or interference? (I've seen some strange
things with that, especially with high ambient temperatures and
condensing humidity...)


> Thanks to all for the suggestions. I just hope the management doesn't
> come to the conclusion that anything getting on in years should be
> replaced.

Yep, we're still running software internally that has not seen a single
update since 2009... Why break what is working fine? (Uptimes are years
at a time, interrupted literally only by power-downs.)


>>> (OK, note the buckshot-at-barn approach for a beer ;-) )
> The next round's on me. (Or is that the Milky bars ?)

Here, trying to keep off chocolate except it's now being even included
into some of the beers!


Catch you at a meet for debrief! :-)

Cheers,
Martin



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