TechNote IP-MSG-03
Intelliprint Series
WAITING
27 Mar 2003 Ed Palmer

Summary: The printer display shows WAITING.

Details:

The full display message will be WAITING <port> <language>; where port is the interface port and language is the printer language. Possible displays:

Port: Parallel, USB, Net1, Net2, Serial, Coax, Twinax

Language: PS, PCL, IPDS, SCS

WAITING indicates that the data is no longer entering the printer interface, but the job has not been terminated. When WAITING is displayed, the printer is locked onto the displayed interface and will not auto-switch.

WAITING is controlled by the WAIT TIMEOUT set under MENU >> SYSTEM MENU >> WAIT TIMEOUT. The default setting is 20 seconds, and can be adjusted from 0 to 65535 seconds from the printer control panel or web page. When set to 0, the timeout is actually zero and occurs immediately (this is not normally recommended).

Note: The JOB TIMEOUT setting controls the processing of a PostScript job that may be stuck in a loop, and has no bearing on this issue.

The WAIT TIMEOUT can be ended manually:

• The printer display shows WAITING.
• Press SELECT- the display shows END JOB.
• Press START.

An end of job is delimited by any of the following:

• Finish command at the end of a network job.
• End of job command in the coax or twinax (IPDS or SCS) datastream.
• Control D reset at the end of a PostScript job.
• Control E reset at the end of a PCL job.
• PJL end of job command.

Network, coax and twinax interfaces have a clearly defined end of job. The only time a printer should hang in WAITING is on power-up when the coax or twinax interface is setup- the message will go away when the timeout expires, or if a job is received

A page (laser) printer cannot print any less than a page. The end of a page or job must be clearly delimited. Parallel, serial and USB interfaces do not have job delimiters- the printer must rely on the contents of the datastream to determine the end of job. If a job does not end with one of the above delimiters, the printer will go into a WAITING mode until the WAIT TIMEOUT expires. When the timeout expires, the printer will flush the image buffer and print any valid data. A PostScript job may flush without printing.

If the printer seems to hang with the WAITING display:

• The job is probably parallel, serial or USB, and there is no job delimiter. Any network device (such as a HP JetDirect) attached to the printer parallel interface is consiered to be parallel.
• WAIT TIMEOUT may be set to a large number.
  

If the WAIT TIMEOUT is set to a very short time, any delay in the datastream may cause the page to flush, printing a partial page.

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