Saving Abnormal Spool Files

Related article: Troubleshooting page count and color detection issues

What is an abnormal spool file?

These are unusual spool files where, for whatever reason, the page count / copies / dimensions are recorded incorrectly. In order to diagnose why the attributes are not recorded correctly, PaperCut will often ask for the spool file in question so that we can see what’s going wrong - and fix it!

Capturing abnormal spool files

It’s easy enough to capture a specific spool file when you can recreate the issue, as documented here:

• Capturing a Windows Spool File
• Capturing a Mac Spool File
• Capturing a Linux Spool File
• Capturing a Novell Spool file
• … and separately, Capturing Spool Files with Mobility Print

However, sometimes you can’t reproduce the issue easily - so setting this spool file ‘trap’ is the next best thing. PaperCut has an option to save spool files which give abnormal page counts / copies or dimensions - so that you can specify the trigger point and hopefully capture that elusive file.

Capturing the specific spool file

Note: This will only work when print provider debug logging is enabled.

1. Copy and paste the following config entry lines into your print-provider.conf file on the print server running the PaperCut Print Provider: [app-path]\providers\print\[platform]\print-provider.conf (change [platform] to e.g. win or mac.

  SavedSpoolDir=[app-path]/providers/print/[platform]/savedspoolfiles
  SavedSpoolKeepCount=3 
  SavedSpoolMaxPages=10000 
  SavedSpoolMaxCopies=10000 
  SavedSpoolMaxDimensionCm=10000 

2. Ensure that debug logging is enabled in the print provider.

3. If you did not restart the Print Provider as part of the previous step, restart the print provider now.

By default, the Print Provider will save the spool files in:

 [app-path]\providers\print\[platform]\savedspoolfiles

Notes about the configuration keys:

• SavedSpoolDir is the directory where the abnormal spool files are saved.
• SavedSpoolKeepCount is the number of most recent abnormal spool files that are saved.
• SavedSpoolMaxPages is the number of pages above which a spool is considered abnormal.
• SavedSpoolMaxCopies is the number of copies above which a spool is considered abnormal.
• SavedSpoolMaxDimensionCm is the page width and height in cm above which a spool is considered abnormal.