SAP Note 26009 - R/3 System does not print, first steps

Symptom:

All output requests go into the status "Waiting for the editor", "Unknown" or "Output device cannot be reached".

Cause and prerequisites

There are numerous causes.

Solution

1. A new installation or an update was carried out and nothing has been printed successfully so far.

a) Submit the command "hostname" on the operating system side and compare the result with the contents of transaction SM51. If a difference exists, please refer to notes 9076, 24485 and 21151. Check this out with your network administrator.

b) All output requests go into the status "unknown". Simply store your printers again. However, a similar case to a) has probably occurred.

c) Whenever the output requests go into the status "Output device cannot be reached" or similar and communication method "U" or "S" isused for these devices, please refer to note 25941. As an immediate action, you can make an entry in the Table THOST according to Note 10743.

2. Printing has already been carried out successfully.

a) Please go through all the spool requests in SP01. Look for the first spool request with the status "Waiting", "In process" or "Error". Then go into transaction "SM50," choose "Restart after error-no" and then terminate the spool work process. Then delete the corresponding output requests. You can then restart the spool work process. Take a note of the printer name.

a1) The printer is defined with communication method "U" or "S". This is a non-secure network printer or a PC which is often switched off. The best thing to do is set this printer up remotely via the host spool of the R/3 spool server (local "L" or "C" communication method).

a2) The printer is defined using communication method "L". In this case the UNIX print command or lpstat command is stuck. In the first case, you should block this printer from the SAP System and reactivate the printer from UNIX. In the second case, you should deactivate the query for the host spool.

For communication method "L", the print command must work. Check this by printing a small file as adm user on Unix, using the exact command stored in the RSPO/HOST_SPOOL_PRINT parameter. (You can also log the print command in the same way as method 2 using Note 5799 to see which exact command is transmitted from R/3). If the command does not work, this is due to an operating system issue.

For print requests with "Error" status, you should also look out for system log messages.
For the message "Name of destination host unknown", refer to Note 25941.
If your requests stop with the status "Waiting", refer to Note 65109.