Printing Stalls after Spooling starts

I'm not sure how to word that subject. This is the problem: several of my Leopard Macs (all Intels), have begun to have a similar problem when printing to networked printers. Whenever they print a file, it can be Word or InDesign, whatever, the printer goes into Pause and they have to go in and un-Pause it to get the jobs to print. Several users can't seem to print at all. The job goes into the the spooler and the status says "spooling job "name"..." after it has spooled about 16k in one case and 254k in another case. But here's the oddest part - if I go in and Pause that "stuck" job and then un-Pause it, the job will start spooling again, only it will show the name of some job they printed days ago. It will get to a certain spot and then just spool forever until I quit it and delete the job.

I have reset the printing system and added all their printers again. I have repaired permissions, several times. I have set up printers using every protocol available, from IP printing to Appletalk. I have imported PPDs from known good systems. I have even successfully printed the CUPS test page from the same printers. In some cases after I print the test page I can even get a regular print job out right after that, but only one. The second one will always go back to trying to spool that phantom job.

So, does anyone know where that phantom job is hiding so I can go in and nuke it back to the Stone Age? Or have any other ideas of what might be wrong with these Macs? They are all Intels running 10.5.4, with 16 GB RAM and InDesign is 5.0.3. I am afraid to go and update to 10.5.5. But that may be what I need to do. The users prefer that I not do an archive and install of Leopard because they are afraid it would mess with all the stuff that does work. Of course, I will do it if that's what it takes. Any ideas would be appreciated!
Thanks,
Laura

MacPro, Mac OS X (10.5.4)

Posted on Sep 16, 2008 4:41 PM

Reply
1 reply

Sep 22, 2008 2:45 PM in response to Laura Kneppel

Well, I don't know if this qualifies as a fix or not, but after going in and deleting jobs in the /var/spool/cups folder - all files beginning with a "c", basically - the system resumed working on one user's machine. None of those jobs had a date that corresponded with the first incident of printing hanging up, so I don't know if I got the phantom job out of the system or not. But it's working now and that's the important thing.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Printing Stalls after Spooling starts

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.