Where are the spooled printer files?

Josef Lowder joe at actionline.com
Thu Oct 27 19:22:43 MST 2005


I've asked this question before but still need a bit more help. 

Occasionally, I accidentally send something to print while the 
printer is turned off, and when this happens, I use lpstat to find 
out what the spooled file name is and then use 'cancel Printer-nnnn' 
to delete the applicable 'nnnn' numbered spooled file. 

But then later, when I turn on the printer, I always get a wasted 
printed page (or two) of garbage which somehow doesn't get 
flushed out of the pipeline. 

Someone suggested using 'lpq' to verify that the pipeline is clear, 
and when I do that, I get the response: "Printer is ready" and 
"no entries".  So, both 'lpstat' and 'lpq' are telling me that there is 
nothing in the pipeline, but they aren't telling the truth. 

ps -ef shows the processes listed below that seem to pertain to the 
printer.  Can I safely kill these processes to flush the pipeline? 
Or are there some other places (directories or folders) I can look 
in my file system to find where this unwanted print residue is hiding? 

root     30516   959  0 09:08 ?        00:00:00 parallel:/dev/lp0 2814 joe 
STDIN 1 Contrast=1.000 Cyan=1.000 Density=1.000 GSResolution=600x600DPI 
Magenta=1.000 OutputType=BlackAndWhite Quality=600dpi StpBrightness=1.000 
StpGamma=1.000 StpSaturation=1.000 Yellow=1.000
lp       30519     1  0 09:08 ?        00:00:00 sh -c gs '-dSAFER' 
'-dNOPAUSE' '-dBATCH' '-sDEVICE=stp' '-sModel=pcl-4' '-sOutputFile=|cat >&3' 
'-' 3>&1 1>&2
lp       30520 30519  0 09:08 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/perl 
/usr/lib/cups/filter/cupsomatic 2814 joe STDIN 1 Contrast=1.000 Cyan=1.000 
Density=1.000 GSResolution=600x600DPI Magenta=1.000 OutputType=BlackAndWhite 
Quality=600dpi StpBrightness=1.000 StpGamma=1.000 StpSaturation=1.000 
Yellow=1.000
lp       30521 30519  0 09:08 ?        00:00:01 gs -dSAFER -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH 
-sDEVICE=stp -sModel=pcl-4 -sOutputFile=|cat >&3 -
lp       30528 30521  0 09:08 ?        00:00:00 sh -c cat >&3
lp       30529 30528  0 09:08 ?        00:00:00 cat
j



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