Killing Print Jobs???

[afroguy013]

Ok, I recently had a problem where I acidentally told my printer to print a buttload of stuff that I didn't want printed. No matter what I tried I couldn't cancel the print job.

I attempted unplugging my printer (no power switch on the thing.)
I attempted hooking it up to a windows machine to clear it
I attempted pushing it's single button over and over to no avail
I searched all the manuals and came up empty
I used the linux print accessories to no avail...

I finally managed to stop the damn thing by re-installing it, but the next time I make a mistake I don't want to have to waste an additional 5 minutes uninstalling and reinstalling my printer.

How do I cancel print jobs in linux?

Specs:
Mandrake 9.1
HP Laserjet 1100 (AKA spawn of satan, do NOT get this model...)

I don't think any of the other specs will help much.


Please assist!

Thanks in advance-

Bill

[drakebasher]

How do I cancel print jobs in linux?

Oddly enough, you want the cancel command. At the command line, do: lpstat That will show a list of your current print jobs. You should see in the left column, the name of your printer queue followed by a number. Do cancel xxx to kill it:

$ lpstat
laserjet-25      ....    ....    other stuff
$ cancel 25

[afroguy013]

Thank you SOOO much!!! Though it is kinda embarrasing that I didn't figure that on my own...

I'll have to try that this afternoon to make sure it works right!

[drakebasher]

Thank you SOOO much!!! Though it is kinda embarrasing that I didn't figure that on my own...

Don't ask how many pages I wasted before I figured it out! I think you may be able to skip the 'lpstat' step and use 'cancel -a' to cancel all of your jobs in the printer queue.

[afroguy013]

Ummm, problem #2. When I do the lpstat, no queues show up (I purposly put up a print job to try this) and I can't cancel what isn't there. More help anyone?

It should be showing up in the console when I launch it from the GUI, right, or is there something I'm misunderstanding about the console in GUI?

I use Gnome and OpenOffice.org if that helps too.

Thanks again...

[drakebasher]

That's a puzzle. If you setup everything the "normal" way, cancel should work.... The only thing I can think of is some permissions thing. So, what I would do to investigate further is this: Open a console and 'su -' to get root priviledge and then send a print job of a couple of pages. Maybe interrupt it by pulling a plug or something to buy some time without wasting paper. And then try lpstat as root. If the printer wants to print, I think it should show-up in the queue. Otherwise it might have left the queue and gone completely into the printer's ram. You might want to double-check the printer setup, too. There should not be a compatibility problem with an HP laserjet. I think you should be able to access the setup and documentation at http://localhost:631 which is on your machine, not the internet.