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Revision as of 14:52, 18 May 2024

Printer Maintenance Script

A lot of effort has been taken by several people to create a reliable script that prints a test page on all printers every few days.

This should prevent the ink drying out which renders the printer unusable.

So far this feat has not been fully achieved yet :(

the script runs every few days as a cron job on the cnx server
several scripts are under /home/walt/.scripts/PrinterMaintenance
crontab -e to check which one is active at the moment
the newer ones are set to create some logs in the same folder (*.log)
most if not all scripts try to print with lp and check somewhat with lpstat what's around (printers and/or open print jobs)

there's a script that prints over the access point mode of the printers
- caveat is that the printer need to be set to ap mode, then back again for normal use
- so far this was used as a "holiday setup"
the other scripts try to print over wlan connected to the router
- this seems to work "mostly" well, at least with the MG3670 printer models
- depending on the mood of the printer, it will not print anything at all

some printers occasionally just don't print anymore and pile up jobs (check lpstat)
- though this also happens with "legit" reasons, e.g. no paper or printer error
printers sometimes "dissapear" from the network and are no longer visible through e.g. lpstat -v
so far no reliable way has been found to resolve the issues automatically

@@ Line 43: / Line 43: @@
 *** sending of notifications could be added (e.g. mail, telegram or line webhook)
 ** if it works well, will merge with printerPurge.sh
+=== Useful Commands ===
+* <code>lp</code>
+* <code>lpstat</code>
+** <code>-e</code>
+** <code>-v</code>
+* <code>lprm [PRINTER] -</code>