CUPS printing via socket very slow

cupsprintingsocketsolaris

I don't find anything suitable on this topic:
we have a Solaris server, running CSW CUPS and several network printers.
Printing using LPD is fast, but when we try socket or SMB, it is painfully slow (<1 sec vs. 30 seconds for a small job).

We avoided this by using LPD up until now when there is a printserver that only supports socket and SMB. The customer declines to replace the unit (please don't ask – we tried everything).

And on the other hand why would socket be slower than LPD??
Has anyone any ideas what to look for/into?

Many thanks!

Best Answer

I'm a bit late to the party, I know.
This may be solved by setting waiteof=false
socket://uri:port?waiteof=false

http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/doc-1.4/network.html#SOCKET

CUPS by default waits for the printer to be ready before sending new print jobs as a safety net. This causes it to be slow as it waits for what is being printed to finish.

Also make sure to update to 1.4.4. Supposedly fixed.

Note:
You will want to install a version more recent than 1.4.4. Cups packages for major distros still have this bug.
Eg: Debian Squeeze (current stable as of 2012), has cups 1.4.4-7, but this bug is still present. I had to install cups 1.5.3 from sid (unstable) to fix this issue.

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