Detecting, reporting, and recovering from printer problems

The InfoPrint Manager server can automatically detect, report, and recover from printer problems for several needs key operator and needs attention conditions as it periodically queries an SNMP printer, even if no jobs are currently being printed. (To turn off automatic recovery, a key operator can manually disable the actual destination.)

For example, the server detects that a printer is out of toner, disables the actual destination, requeues the jobs, and sets the actual destination state to needs attention or needs key operator. Then, when a key operator replaces the toner, the server detects that the printer is running again, sets the actual destination state to idle, and re-enables the actual destination.

Besides automatically managing the state of the actual destination, the InfoPrint Manager server also updates its problem-message, warning-message, and snmp-device-conditions attributes and sends out printer-needs-attention and printer-needs-key-operator notifications. The actual destination's state, which message attribute is updated, and what type of notification is sent depends on the severity of the condition reported by the printer, such as error, warning, or report.

This is the list of SNMP printer conditions that InfoPrint Manager reports:

  • Cover open
  • Input tray empty
  • Interlock open
  • Media empty
  • Media missing
  • Offline
  • Paper jam
  • Power off
  • Service requested
  • Fuser over temp
  • Input tray missing
  • Printer supply empty
  • Printer supply missing
  • Printer waste full
  • Output bin full
  • Output bin missing
  • Fuser under temp
  • Printer supply low
  • Printer waste almost full
  • Media low
  • Moving offline
  • Moving online
  • Output bin near full
  • Warmup

Note: Not all printers report all these conditions. For example, most printers do not report the Warning conditions.

The same condition can be reported with a different severity depending on the situation. For example, a printer might report an input tray empty condition as an error or a warning. It could be a warning if the printer had multiple input trays linked together with the same media and only one of them is empty. If a condition is reported as an error, InfoPrint Manager reports these conditions as needs-key-operator as opposed to needs-attention:

  • fuser-over-temp
  • fuser-under-temp
  • marker-supply-empty
  • marker-supply-low
  • marker-supply-missing
  • marker-waste-full
  • marker-waste-almost-full
  • media-missing
  • output-bin-missing
  • service-requested
  • warmup
Regardless of the severity, InfoPrint Manager lists all conditions on the snmp-device-conditions attribute.