Troubleshooting with the Local Telnet test

Sat, 01/27/2024 - 14:18 By Dave Brooks
  RPM & Telnet • Local telnet • Mainframe telnet

Q: I try to send a print job to RPM Remote Print Manager® ("RPM"), and nothing is recorded in the log. I do not exactly know if the problem is in my network or just that RPM is not receiving.

A: To perform a local telnet test, you need to first have network logging turned on in RPM. Follow these steps:

  1. In RPM, choose "Log" from the "Options" menu.
  2. If they are not already checked, put a check in the first 6 boxes: 'Enable network logging', 'High detail', 'Enable print logging', 'High detail', 'Enable queue logging', and 'High detail'.
  3. Press OK

Now that you have the logging set to high detail, you need to perform a local telnet test. Use the following steps.

  1. Choose Run from the Windows Start menu.
  2. If your computer operating system is Windows 95, 98, or Millennium Edition, type "COMMAND" in the Run dialog. Otherwise, type "CMD". Press OK.
  3. In the command prompt, type telnet 127.0.0.1 515 and press Enter. If you know the IP address of the RPM host, substitute it instead of 127.0.0.1.
  4. Depending on your RPM settings and your operating system, different results can occur. For instance, on Windows 2000 or XP:
    • If a telnet window pops up, or the command prompt goes to a plain black screen with only a blinking cursor, but nothing else happens, press Enter again.
    • A dialog should pop up stating: 'Connection to host lost' and in the Telnet window, another message appears: 'Socket xxxx received unknown command 0xd with arguments."
  5. On Windows 9x or NT, with older versions of RPM, this may happen:
    • You may see a message in the DOS prompt that says 'Client port xxxx out of range'.
  6. In either case, check the RPM log for the same message.
    • In RPM, press the "Log" tab at the bottom of the RPM window.
    • Look for the same message you received above: 'Client port xxxx out of range'.

If the RPM log has the same error, that means RPM is working fine. If not, that means something else got the connection and is not allowing RPM to do its job. You need to look for another LPD that might be starting before RPM. Some terminal emulators such as "Exceed" install an LPD server software that cannot on the same computer at the same time with RPM.