Mysterious errored print job

Posted by Gumbyohson@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 18 comments

Recent issue at a customer. A Konica Minolta printer keeps receiving an errored job over and over which blocks the queue for other jobs. Printer in question does not provide IP address for source of the job but does state the staff name which is not someone who works from that office. Clearing the spooler on all local devices and rebooting the printer doesn't stop the issue.

Unable to get packet capture from any network devices. On a whim, check the firewall and see port 9100 requests from a remote S2S connected PC. Cleared the spooler on that PC, job keeps coming. Restarted VPN, job keeps coming. Create a firewall rule to block the port and IP and job keeps coming

Can't reboot the firewall at production hours. End up loading into the advanced shell of the firewall (recentish patch level Sophos XG) and killing all current connections using "conntrack -F".

Turns out the S2S is very recent and connected from a crappy TP-Link and the remote PC had a bunch of print jobs sent to the wrong printer cause the queues are deployed to all devices. During the build of the VPN, the job got sent and the Sophos kept replaying the packet over and over for a week. Killing the connections killed the bad packet. Printer now working again.

[-]

Vinnie_Vegas@reddit

When I was younger and saw Office Space, this seemed like a perfectly angry thing to get mad about.

When I got older, and found out that Americans call their standard paper size "Letter", I was baffled at how a group of office workers couldn't figure out what "load letter" might mean with a printer.

[-]

MattAdmin444@reddit

Unfortunately there is a startling large number of people who seem incapable of following instructions if they are on a screen or otherwise involves tech more complicated than a toaster. While my staff have gotten much better about it for almost a year after we got new printers I was the one clearing out the paper jams despite the printer's screen literally giving a step by step of where to check, there's only one spot that's hard to spot because its on the underside of a tray you pull out.

[-]

AJourneyer@reddit

The same as every office I've been in - and the new printers have instructions on a screen that are pictures - so even if they don't read, could they at least look?

[-]

TheBrokenape@reddit

Come now, real men/women don't read directions... they wait for someone techie to show up and ask them to fix it.. then when the non-technical averse person starts to look at the issue, they then said I'm not sure you're doing it right as when I was googling it..

[-]

androshalforc1@reddit

I’ve got a printer that if it runs out during a job asks to be reloaded, but then it will ask again when the job is completed despite the tray being full. It won’t print anything until i open and close the tray again.

[-]

himitsumono@reddit

How am I supposed to LOAD LETTER into my PC?

All I have open is this cup holder

[-]

syntaxerror53@reddit

At least you have a cup holder.

Letter won't even fit in the 3.5" letterbox, or the 5.25" one.

Look like will have to find the 8" letterbox.

[-]

himitsumono@reddit

And then some snow. To walk barefoot in, uphill both ways, to and from.

[-]

flecktonesfan@reddit

I think the biggest problem was the "PC". Up until 3 minutes ago, I had no idea that stood for "paper cassette". No standard user called it a paper cassette, and I don't know if anyone in IT at the time did either. We all called it a paper tray. So now it looks like it's telling me to go back to my computer to do something, and in that context "load letter" makes no sense.

An error like "Paper Tray Empty" or "Out of Paper" would have made far more sense to the average user.