IBM AIX 7.3 – Common Problem 97 – Diagnosis and Fix

📖 ~1 min read

Table of contents

1. Symptom & Impact
2. Environment & Reproduction
3. Root Cause Analysis
4. Quick Triage
5. Step-by-Step Diagnosis
6. Solution – Primary Fix
7. Solution – Alternative Approaches
8. Verification & Acceptance Criteria
9. Rollback Plan
10. Prevention & Hardening
11. Related Errors & Cross-Refs
12. References & Further Reading

Symptom & Impact

Print jobs pile up; qchk shows queues in DOWN state.

Environment & Reproduction

Triggered by a network printer being moved or renamed.

Root Cause Analysis

qdaemon cannot reach the backend rembak host for the queue.

Quick Triage

Run enq -As and qchk -A to list queue states.

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Inspect /var/spool/lpd/qdir and tail /var/spool/lpd/stat/sqdir.

Solution – Primary Fix

Re-enable with enable -A and refresh -s qdaemon after fixing hosts.

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Alternative: recreate the queue with smit mkpq using the new address.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

Verify qchk -A shows READY and a test page prints successfully.

Rollback Plan

Backup /etc/qconfig before editing queue definitions.

Prevention & Hardening

Standardise queue names and use DNS, not IPs, in /etc/qconfig.

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

Related: QDAEMON_FAIL entries and 0781-202 errors from rembak.

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for aix-7.3.

View all aix-7.3 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

IBM Docs: AIX printing and qdaemon administration.