[wellylug] printer problem

Ewen McNeill wellylug at ewen.mcneill.gen.nz
Wed Dec 10 09:14:41 NZDT 2003


In message <200312100816.47493.bob.dugan at vuw.ac.nz>, bob dugan writes:
>A pdf file did not print out completely on a HP 840C [RH 8.2].  I cleared
>the queue and restarted with lpc.  But when I try to print now, I get the
>following error message:
>Status: cannot open '/dev/lp0' - 'Device or resource busy', attempt 3,
>sleeping 40 at 08:15:55.984

I'd suspect that there's still an old lp* process running trying to use
the printer device, which is blocking out the second print attempt.  
Simply stopping and restarting the queue isn't always sufficient to clear 
this out, unfortunately.

Trying somthing like:
- empty the printer queue
- stop the printer service
- ps ax | grep lp
- killing off any lp proceses running
- restart the printer queue 
- retry the printing

may help.  Alternatively as a "quick fix" rebooting the system will take
most of these steps as part of what it does, as well as resetting the
hardware.

Ewen



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