Printers printing several copies of the same job

Wed May 25 10:16:53 UTC 2005

Hello list,

On our RHEL 3, we have configured 55 networked printers, on different
subnets, some directly connected to the network, some through printservers
(Planet, JetDirect). The printers are also of different models, HP
Laserjets, Kyocera, Avery... And we set them up with raw queue, since our
application sends the formatting codes. Finally, some printers are set up as
socket, some others as lpd (depends on the print server). Our network has
two interfaces eth0 and eth1, and they are bonded (channel bonding) on bond0
- just thought to mention this, however I don't know if it's related.

Our problem is that _randomly_ some printers print out several copies of the
same job. The number of copies varies but tops at 20. We monitored the
network with tcpdump and noticed that the communication for a single job or
for a duplicated job are exactly the same. Except that the duplicated jobs
are making the communication several times. We can therefore exclude the
possiblity of a wrong communication where cups wouldn't get any answer from
the printer and would retry several times.

We have no clue where to look for this problem, and are thinking of some bug
with CUPS when dealing with a lot of printers. What experiences do you have
with similar configurations?

Please let me know if you need some more information. Below you'll find the
output of some configuration files, logs or other output.

Thanks,

Erich

Excerpt of /var/log/cups/error_log. Notice that in the same second, 20 jobs
were submitted, they are all duplicates of 27975
I [25/May/2005:12:04:05 +0200] Job 27975 queued on 'PR_HI06_P1' by
'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:08 +0200] Job 27976 queued on 'PR_HI02' by 'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:08 +0200] Job 27977 queued on 'PR_HI02' by 'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:08 +0200] Job 27978 queued on 'PR_HI02' by 'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:08 +0200] Job 27979 queued on 'PR_HI02' by 'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:08 +0200] Job 27980 queued on 'PR_HI02' by 'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:08 +0200] Job 27981 queued on 'PR_HI02' by 'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:08 +0200] Job 27982 queued on 'PR_HI02' by 'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:08 +0200] Job 27983 queued on 'PR_HI02' by 'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:08 +0200] Job 27984 queued on 'PR_HI02' by 'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:08 +0200] Job 27985 queued on 'PR_HI02' by 'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:08 +0200] Job 27986 queued on 'PR_HI02' by 'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:08 +0200] Job 27987 queued on 'PR_HI02' by 'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:08 +0200] Job 27988 queued on 'PR_HI02' by 'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:08 +0200] Job 27989 queued on 'PR_HI02' by 'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:08 +0200] Job 27990 queued on 'PR_HI02' by 'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:08 +0200] Job 27991 queued on 'PR_HI02' by 'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:08 +0200] Job 27992 queued on 'PR_HI02' by 'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:08 +0200] Job 27993 queued on 'PR_HI02' by 'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:08 +0200] Job 27994 queued on 'PR_HI02' by 'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:08 +0200] Job 27995 queued on 'PR_HI02' by 'alhi205'.
I [25/May/2005:12:04:09 +0200] Job 27996 queued on 'PR_BE10' by 'alhi201'.

/etc/cups/cupsd.conf:
LogLevel info
MaxLogSize 0
MaxCopies 3
MaxClients 300
MaxClientsPerHost 300
MaxRequestSize 0
Browsing Off
BrowseInterval 1800
<Location /admin>
AuthType Basic
AuthClass System
Order Deny,Allow
Deny From All
Allow From 127.0.0.1
</Location>
<Location /printers/PS_BE_P1>
Order Deny,Allow
Deny From All
Allow From 127.0.0.1
AuthType None
</Location>
... (all 54 other printers with the same settings)
Browsing Off
BrowseProtocols cups
BrowseOrder Deny,Allow
BrowseAllow from @LOCAL
Listen 127.0.0.1:631

/etc/cups/printers.conf
<Printer HP2200KINON>
Info Created by redhat-config-printer 0.6.x
Location HP2200 Kinon Verkauf
DeviceURI socket://hp2200kinon:9100
State Idle
Accepting Yes
JobSheets none none
QuotaPeriod 0
PageLimit 0
KLimit 0
</Printer>
... All printers have the same configuration, except for the Location and
the DeviceURI Lines

# lpstat -s
no system default destination
device for HP2200KINON: socket://hp2200kinon:9100
device for PR_BE01: socket://pr_be01:9100
device for PR_BE02_P1: lpd://pr_be02/L1
device for PR_BE02_P2: lpd://pr_be02/L2
device for PR_BE06_P1: lpd://pr_be06/raw1
device for PR_BE06_P3: lpd://pr_be06/raw3
device for PR_BE07: socket://pr_be07:9100
device for PR_BE08: lpd://pr_be08/raw1
device for PR_BE09: socket://pr_be09:9100
device for PR_BE10: socket://pr_be10:9100
device for PR_BE11: socket://pr_be11:9100
device for PR_BE12: socket://pr_be12:9100
device for PR_BE13: socket://pr_be13:9100
device for PR_BE14: socket://pr_be14:9100
device for PR_HI01: socket://pr_hi01:9100
device for PR_HI02: socket://pr_hi02:9100
device for PR_HI03: socket://pr_hi03:9100
device for PR_HI04: socket://pr_hi04:9100
device for PR_HI05: socket://pr_hi05:9100
device for PR_HI06_P1: lpd://pr_hi06/L1
device for PR_HI06_P2: lpd://pr_hi06/L2
device for PR_HI06_P3: lpd://pr_hi06/L3
device for PR_HI07: socket://pr_hi07:9100
device for PR_HI08: socket://pr_hi08:9100
device for PR_HI10: socket://pr_hi10:9100
device for PR_HI11: socket://pr_hi11:9100
device for PR_HI12: socket://pr_hi12:9100
device for PR_HI13: lpd://pr_hi13/L1
device for PR_HI14: socket://pr_hi14:9100
device for PR_HI15: socket://pr_hi15:9100
device for PR_HI16: lpd://pr_hi16/raw1
device for PR_HI17: lpd://pr_hi17/raw1
device for PR_HI19: socket://pr_hi19:9100
device for PR_KR01_P1: lpd://pr_kr01/L1
device for PR_KR02: socket://pr_kr02:9100
device for PR_KR03_P1: lpd://pr_kr03/L1
device for PR_KR03_P2: lpd://pr_kr03/L2
device for PR_KR03_P3: lpd://pr_kr03/L3
device for PR_KR04: socket://pr_kr04:9100
device for PR_KR05: socket://pr_kr05:9100
device for PR_KR08: lpd://pr_kr08/raw1
device for PR_PRO01: socket://pr_pro01:9100
device for PR_PRO02: socket://pr_pro02:9100
device for PR_RO01: socket://pr_ro01:9100
device for PR_RO02: socket://pr_ro02:9100
device for PR_RO03: socket://pr_ro03:9100
device for PR_RO04: socket://pr_ro04:9100
device for PR_RO05: socket://pr_ro05:9100
device for PR_RO07_P1: lpd://pr_ro07/L1
device for PR_RO07_P2: lpd://pr_ro07/L2
device for PR_RO08: socket://pr_ro08:9100
device for PR_WRT01: socket://pr_wrt01:9100
device for PR_WRT02: socket://pr_wrt02:9100
device for PR_WRT03: socket://pr_wrt03:9100
device for PR_WRT04: lpd://pr_wrt04/L1

Mit freundlichen Grüssen - kind regards - Meilleures salutations -
Vriendelijke groeten

Erich Iseli