Subject: RE: PMP> Top 25 minus 4 conditions/alerts proposal

From: JK Martin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 13:11:26 -0400 (EDT)

Bob,

Thanks for following up on this topic.  You know, though, after reading
your proposed text, it suddenly hit me that we may not have been properly
analyzing the scenario in the first place.

A quick review of the basic scenario for those not in the PMP telecon
during which this new topic was first discussed:

  Some printers can be configured such that a certain condition
  normally considered as a "warning" (such as "toner low") can
  be configured so as to stop the printer altogether, that is,
  the event results in a critical condition, not a warning.

Now (assuming the above picture is correct), if we step back back
and look at the words, in essence what we have is the interesting
situation where the printer can actually *map* a warning condition
to a critical condition.

As such, for this scenario, a "toner low" condition is not at all
a non-critical (ie, warning) condition, but rather a very real
critical condition.  There is nothing in the alert code tagged for
"toner low" that implies it is implicitly a non-critical alert, right?

If this is indeed true, then we don't have to worry about muddying up
the Top 25 Conditions table with a new situation in which a non-critical
alert is treated in some way as a critical alert.

Basic premise for everyone to agree upon (and maybe a useful bit of
clarifying text for the new Printer MIB draft):

  The printer (and only the printer) decides which alert codes are
  critical versus non-critical.

Does everyone agree with this?  If so, then (following Bob's text) when
the user "continues" the printer (ie, acknowledges the warning condition),
then shouldn't the printer remove *both* the Offline and critical alert
(describing the toner low condition), and add a new non-critical alert
to say that the condition still remains (but is no longer critical)?

Comments?

	...jay

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----- Begin Included Message -----

>From [email-masked] Thu May  1 12:45 EDT 1997
From: Bob Pentecost <[email-masked]>
To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "'Chuck Adams'" <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: PMP> Top 25 minus 4 conditions/alerts proposal
Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 10:43:06 -0600
Encoding: 39 TEXT

During the Tuesday phone conference, I offered some wording about a 
particular alert condition that is non-critical yet the printer stops due 
to an option being set in the printer. Here's the wording which can be 
added to Chuck's table if desired.

"When a non-critical condition occurs, the printer may choose to stop 
printing by going offline (e.g., when a toner low condition occurs, the 
printer might stop to notify the user); in which case there would be two 
alerts entered into the alert table, one for the error condition and one 
for the offline condition. The offline condition is considered to be the 
critical alert that is stopping printing. Putting the printer online 
without fixing the error condition causes the offline alert to be removed 
from the table, but the non-critical alert remains in the table until the 
error condition is fixed."

Bob

----------
From:  Chuck Adams[SMTP:[email-masked]]
Sent:  Thursday, May 01, 1997 9:33 AM
To:  [email-masked]
Subject:  PMP> Top 25 minus 4 conditions/alerts proposal

Folks,

        I have posted the proposed Appendix wording for the
	the Top 25 minus 4 alerts document to the ftp site. See:

        ftp://pwg.org/pub/pwg/pmp/contributions/err4.doc
        ftp://pwg.org/pub/pwg/pmp/contributions/err4.pdf

	I believe this reflects all the changes requested
	in the Wednesday conference call.

Chuck Adams
Tektronix, Inc.

----- End Included Message -----

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From: "Gail Songer" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 12:03:33 -0700

Jay,

I would have to agree with Bob's definition for two reasons.

The first and probably the weakest is that his definition requires the least
amount of code work.  You get the "low toner" from the engine and put it into
the table. At this point, you don't know if the printer is going to pause
printing(or how long the printer is going to pause printing) or if the printer
is just going to continue printer.  All the SNMP code needs to do is put the
low toner message in the alert table. Sometime later, SNMP code receives a
message that the printer is waiting (or "offline"), and still later that the
printer is no longer waiting.  The SNMP code is divorced from having to know
why the printer is waiting, and why the printer continues(other stuff could
have occured that would cause the printer to also go offline).  The low toner
still exists, and it exists in the same form from  the begining. This also has
the benifit that only one error means that the printer may be in need of toner,
rather than two different entries that mean basically the same thing.

The second is the syncronozation with the the HR varialbes.  "low toner" is
specified as being a "warning" for hrDeviceStatus and previously this group
desided that these correlations should be maintained.  Therefore a "toner low"
in hrPrinterDetectedErrorState can ONLY cause the printer to be "warning".
 With Bob's wording, the we reflect the true state of printer by forcing the
printer into the "down" condition in hrDeviceStatus with "offline" added to
hrPrinterDetectedErrorState.

Gail

On May 1,  1:11pm, JK Martin wrote:
>-- End of excerpt from JK Martin

---

From: JK Martin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 13:40:11 -0400 (EDT)

Gail,

> What did we decide to do with hrPrinterDetectedErrorState?  What should be set
> in this variable in this condition?
> 
> Sometime ago we discussed removing the association between
> hrPrinterDetectedErrorState and hrDeviceStatus.  Are we reversing that
> decision?

When you say "in this condition", are you referring to the printer-stopping
case of "toner low"?  If so, then wouldn't the Host Resources MIB variables
be set to:

	hrDeviceStatus                down(5)
	hrPrinterStatus               other(1)
	hrPrinterDetectedErrorState   lowToner(1)

Or are you thinking of a different condition?

	...jay

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From: "Gail Songer" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 10:44:38 -0700

Jay,

You always catch me when I am being unclear.  Would you please stop that? :)

Yes,  I am speaking of the toner low condition that causes the printer to
temporarily pause.

>From your response, I gather you are up for the break in associations as
defined by the host resourses mib...

Gail

On May 8,  1:40pm, JK Martin wrote:
> Subject: Re: PMP> Top 25 minus 4 conditions/alerts proposal
> Gail,
>

---

From: JK Martin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 13:49:59 -0400 (EDT)

Gail,

I certainly suggested that if the HR MIB model for printers ends up
conflicting with what we believe is the *right* model for handling
certain conditions, then yes, we should consider "deprecating" our
association with the HR MIB status variables.

However, if you agree that the values I proposed for the HR MIB variables
(below) are correct, then for the "critical toner low" condition, there
is no conflict.  Again, assuming the values I proposed are correct.

Someone had previously illustrated a scenario in which the Alert Table
entry would be in conflict with the previously published set of related
HR MIB values.  What was that scenario?

	...jay

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From [email-masked] Thu May  8 13:45 EDT 1997
From: "Gail Songer" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 10:44:38 -0700
To: JK Martin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: PMP> Top 25 minus 4 conditions/alerts proposal
Cc: [email-masked]

Jay,

Gail

----- End Included Message -----

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From: "Gail Songer" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 11:25:55 -0700

Jay,

> > 	hrPrinterDetectedErrorState   lowToner(1)

is in conflict the host resources mib.  "lowToner" forces hrDeviceStatus to
"warning" not "down".  One way to avoid conflict is to add "offline" to
hrPrinterDetectedErrorState since "offline" requires "down" in hrDeviceStatus.
 This, unfortunatly, brings us back to the alert table.  I suppose that having
a toner low critical, that would change to a warning when the printer continues
would work and still keep everything consistent.

---

From: JK Martin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 May 1997 12:05:08 -0400 (EDT)

Bill,

>      I have been following the thread. I did not offer an opinion until it 
>      appeared to work its way to the point of ...questionable rationality.

Geez, don't hold back, Bill.  ;-)

>      An example might be removing a paper tray  should not cause all the 
>      alerts associated with media.  But if a manufacturer/user has chosen 
>      to have a low toner condition precipitate an off line condition, these 
>      are still two separate conditions, which may be independently cleared. 
>      One could remove the low toner condition without the off line and 
>      vice-versa.  To treat them as one condition seems unreasonable, and 
>      produces oddities like the alert that changes from a critical to a 
>      warning level.

With this statement you've completely disregarded the past statements
about what the user sees and expects.  That's unfortunate.  Others see
it differently than you.

>      Again, just my opinion, but I think we have followed a line of 
>      reasoning without paying much attention to whether it makes sense. 

I'm curious why you think the "line of reasoning" doesn't make sense.
However, perhaps you could respond to me privately, since it appears
this discussion grows tiring to the rest of the list.

There is perhaps a reasonable compromise that no one has yet offered:

If a vendor chooses to add two alert entries for the printer-stopping
low toner condition, then the offline alert should have its description
string clearly state that the reason for going offline is due to the
low toner condition, and not simply say "Offline" (as so many do now).

Is this a fair compromise?

	...jay

---

From: "Gail Songer" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 May 1997 10:59:41 -0700

Jay,

On May 9, 12:05pm, JK Martin wrote:
> Subject: Re: Re[4]: PMP> Top 25 minus 4 conditions/alerts proposal

If we are going to have multiple "types" of offline, then the other variables
in the alert table probably should reflect the differences.  At a minimum the
offline alert should have different prtAlertLocation's based on the "type" of
offline.  To me a better implementation would have different alert groups and
alert group indexes as well.

This could take a lot of space in an imbedded system where space is precious,
either code space to create the entry and then ram space to store it or extra
entries in a table. Additionally this could clutter up the alert table with
multiple offlines and we should definatly try to hold the size of the table
down.

Given that you really want to inform the user of why the printer is not
printing, I like your previous suggestion better.  One alert describes the true
state imposed by the alert(one alert that is tonerlow, critical and one that is
tonerlow wraning). This also seems to be more consistent with other critical
errors. It is annoying that I have two alerts for basically the same engine
event, but to me, it is cleaner then the above.