Comments on: Need to hold/resend AS/400 spool file on print failure

By: bigmac46

bigmac46 — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 15:29:13 +0000

how about ?
Rename the printer and keep the outq to send printing to. The outq name will change so you need to create an out q same name a original printer.
Start the writer with the outq same name as the printer – not the original outq
Retrieve the spoolfile info from the old outq and change everything to save(*yes)
Move the spool files you just changed to save(*yes) to the new outq attached to the printer .
Set up the program used to do the moves to be run every 15 minutes or so or on demand.
There is some coding involved but there are some how-to examples available on OUTQ controls to delete and/or move spool files in several web sites.
Simple method is to do what Tom says – change to save*yes) and create a cleanup program to delete everything over x number of days or hours old.

By: tomliotta

tomliotta — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 01:01:40 +0000

There are so many reports that changing them all to save and writing a program to clean them up would be a project. It might not be necessary to change them all. See Data queue support for discussion of a couple possible methods of automating dynamic changes to SAVE(*YES) status. You can have a monitor program that is notified whenever a job places a spooled file on the *OUTQ in RDY status. The monitor program then has a chance to set SAVE(*YES) or to do some other processing such as copying to a secondary *OUTQ. Clearing old spooled files might also be easy, perhaps depending on what an automated monitor does to help prepare. Tom

By: psmurray

psmurray — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 01:10:58 +0000

If it’s an important spool file that we want to save in case something happens, we create a duplicate of the spool file in and OutQ. designed for saving files. (example: SAVEDAILY, SAVEWEEKLY, SAVEMONTH) These special out queues are saved daily. If a report has been found missing by the user, then we can restore the spool file.Of course this has its limitations, it cannot process files that have barcode or other special features.

hope this helps
Phil.

By: splat

splat — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 15:42:14 +0000

There seems to be a communications lag between the device and the iSeries, with the spool file being cleared out of the output queue while still in the printer buffer or in transit.

I got around it somewhat by creating system reply list entries that, for the most part, cancel the writer. This has drastically cut down the incidence of lost reports.

Of course, I had to create a program to restart print writers every thirty minutes if I wanted any sleep . . .

By: daowebe

daowebe — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 01:23:15 +0000

That is exactly what I was looking for, communications back but haven’t seen anything anywhere. We’ve submitted the same question to Xerox. There are so many reports that changing them all to save and writing a program to clean them up would be a project. Hopefully we can talk the printer manufacture into working with us to come up with a better solution. Just a stab in the dark.

By: tomliotta

tomliotta — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 03:05:14 +0000

Unless it’s an IPDS printer, I can’t think of any way to get it done through the configuration. An IPDS printer might communicate status back to your system, though I haven’t had IPDS available for a number of years.

You might set the the printer files to SAVE(*YES) so they won’t be removed from the outq after being sent to the printer. They can be deleted the next day, manually or automatically if you do a little programming.

Tom