ePrint system falters under increased demand

OIT attributes the ePrint errors in part due to a higher printing volume.
OIT attributes the ePrint errors in part due to a higher printing volume.

Error message “49.XXX” is now a universal symbol of frustration among members of the Duke community.

During the first two weeks of classes, students barraged the Office of Information Technology with complaints about ePrint after frequent error messages and disabled machines prevented students from printing. Duke’s ePrint service typically lets students print from their own computers at stations located throughout campus.

Higher print volume contributed to this increase in malfunctions, Evan Levine, manager of IT Software License and Lab Engineering—a branch of OIT—wrote in an email Friday.

“Higher print volume at the beginning of the semester… results in more frequent maintenance calls to replace supplies and clear paper jams,” Levine said. “We saw an unusually high number of printer malfunctions… under this higher volume.”

Levine noted that students printed 200,000 more pages during the first week of classes than in an average week during the school year.

There are more than 50 OIT-managed printers in the ePrint system in addition to those managed by other groups on campus, including 19 printers operated by Duke Libraries, according to OIT’s website.

Problems with ePrint are often caused by the small percentage of students who print in high volumes. Since Fall 2008, the volume of pages printed by students has risen by just above 23 percent. During Spring 2011, Duke students printed more than 13.6 million pages of material, Levine said.

“Printing statistics show few people are printing exorbitant amounts,” said Molly Tamarkin, associate librarian for information technology at Duke Libraries—adding that she once witnessed a student print an entire Bible at an ePrint station.

The errors so far this year are also due in part to specific incidents, Levine added.

“Some of these errors came from attempts to print large PDFs, and when students couldn’t get these print jobs out of one printer, they often disabled additional printers with subsequent attempts elsewhere,” he said.

Tamarkin referred to one incident she called the “legendary corrupt PDF.”

Many of the ePrint malfunctions are due to a single corrupt PDF accidently distributed by a biology professor in the first week of classes, she said. The corrupt material caused any machine with the document in its cue to display an error message. Ultimately, OIT contacted the professor directly and rectified the error.

A ‘stressful’ inconvenience

The sporadic disruptions caused problems for many students.

“I’m on Central Campus, and the one [printer] on Alexander never works,” junior Joyce Yu said. “It hasn’t been like this in past years—it’s just these past two weeks.”

New students were especially burdened by the errors.

“As a freshman, it’s a little bit stressful to not know when and where to get your printed papers, especially in the first week of school,” freshman Madison Moyle said.

IT Analyst Paul Wilshire said there are challenges inherent in improving the ePrint system.

“What we have here is a glorified work group printer,” he said, noting that in order to improve the system, ePrint would have to become more centralized, sacrificing convenience for efficiency.

Given the sheer volume of printing that occurs on campus, continued problems with ePrint seem inevitable.

“Users should expect some printers on the system to be out of service at any given time,” Levine said.

OIT said it does not expect the malfunctions to continue, as students will likely be printing at a lower volume as the weeks go on. Levine noted that he expects ePrint to return to normal, though the system will never fully be rid of errors.

Improving ePrint efficiency

OIT is also taking steps to make sure ePrint functions better this year, addressing software issues as well.

Wilshire noted the improvements being made to ePrint, including the Duke Libraries’ newly expanded refresh rate. After some complaints last year, ePrint machines are now replaced a full year earlier.

“When we saw the issues arise during the first week of school, we immediately created and tested new ePrint software for Macs—which had been more problematic—and pushed it out to users,” Levine said. “This new software reduced the high number of printer malfunctions, which in turn allowed us to give increased attention to routine maintenance.”

In addition, print cues can now be cleared by people outside OIT, making it possible for librarians to fix some of the more common ePrint problems.

“The ePrint system is functioning well,” Levine said, noting some of the tactics being employed by OIT to rectify common errors with the system, including working with the schools and departments that manage ePrint printers to determine the best time for major upgrades, identifying new printers that function more reliably to eventually replace the less functional machines currently in use and planning for regular increases in ePrint server capacity.

Yu said adding more ePrint stations could potentially help mitigate the technological difficulties.

“It’s been an interesting journey with ePrint,” Wilshire said.

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