Printer problems

The printer(s) occasionally malfunction. Check the things you print soon after you have sent them to the printer. This can be done using lpq command

lpq -P dh2088

This will save much time and headaches. Do not go home or off somewhere for several hours without checking! Be very careful about what you send to the printer. Sending the compiled form of a program to the printer can cause it to spew gibberish for many dozens of pages.

If the result of your lpq command is something like

stalled (2222sec) 234 a-huge-pdf-file.pdf

you are in trouble. DO NOT simply reset the printer. In most of the cases, printing jobs will remain after you reset the printer, and will still be stalled. You can try to remove your own stalled printing job with lprm command. For example, if job 234 is stalled on dh2088, log on to thor and fire command:

lprm -d dh2088 234

If lprm does not work or the stalled printing job belongs to someone else, you should report the problem and use another printer instead. During normal office hours, you can submit a problem through Rice Problem Tracking System http://problem.rice.edu. At night or during the weekend, you can send an email to helpdesk mailto:helpdesk@stat.rice.edu, who can remove stalled printing jobs if he is available.