Unable to open printout file: C:AL500alephcomfilesprintd.log

• Article Type: General
• Product: Aleph
• Product Version: 17.01

Description:
We have library overdue and lost reports set to run everyday at 5:40 and 5:45 approximately in the job daemon. These reports each have a different name and file extension so the system will not overwrite a report for seven days. Recently it was discovered that neither of these reports is producing a report. We are accustomed to seeing even a null report. After checking the log via puTTY and the batch log via the GUI, we can see that both of these reports begin and end normally but there is still no report.

Comparing it to the test server shows that reports are producing as they should in the test server. Comparing the reports from the test server to records in the prod server show a lost report should have been produced today for barcode 22146000132840. The circulation summary in the prod server shows that a report was generated.

We get the following error in the Task Manager:

Unable to open printout file: C:\AL500\alephcom\files\ABC50\print\history\20080310\10\AlephPrintout-2.pm

Resolution:
I believe that the behavior we are seeing is a characteristic of the Print daemon.

You indicate that you had a staff member run the overdue reports with her print daemon. The print daemon looks on the server for files with a particular print ID / suffix and, if found prints them. I believe it also moves the file into a date-stamped directory. (If it didn't do this, then it would keep printing the same file over and over!)

I suggest, as a test, that you tell staff member to *not* activiate the Print daemon but, instead, to:

* Open the Task Manager
* Click on File List (if not already there)
* highlight a remote file on the bottom window of the screen
* click on the triangle in the middle of the screen to move it to her local files (the top window of the screen)
* highlight the file and click on Print

If we find that in this case the file stays on the server, then that confirms my hypothesis as to what is happening.

If you want to be able to look at the files after they have been printed, then you will need to either look at them on the server (in the date-stamped directory which the print daemon has created) or the staff will need to print them themselves (rather than having the print daemon print them).

• Article last edited: 10/8/2013