Slow print, many failed print jobs.

[mrkitty]

Hi

So we have been using Universal Print for a few months with varied results.

It sort of works, but to many times we see that printjobs can take several minutes, and often print jobs fails.

Strangley, when a print job failed, we just need to wait a few minutes and the job prints. If we restart a fails job, the printer prints the same job twice.

Today, I was trying to dig deeper and see if could find a reason for this behaviour.

In the connector log, I could see that when a job failed:

IPP Request operation: UpdateJobStatus
Uri: https://print.print.microsoft.com/printers/7a291562-2481-421b-bf5e-b51b63512317
response:StatusCode: 503, ReasonPhrase: 'Service Unavailable', Version: 1.1, Content: System.Net.Http.StreamContent, Headers:
{
  X-Cache: CONFIG_NOCACHE
  X-MSEdge-Ref: Ref A: 6EF26F23A4BD41FF929ECD4BE539A281 Ref B: HEL01EDGE1619 Ref C: 2021-10-13T08:28:32Z
  Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2021 08:28:34 GMT
  Content-Length: 0
}
Http client failed with statusCode: ServiceUnavailable
Exception of type 'ProxyLibrary.UPServiceException' was thrown.

Printer info:
(Name: 3206ci KX (XPS), CloudDeviceId: 7a291562-2481-421b-bf5e-b51b63512317, PhysicalDeviceId: 44e3c48e-acc3-49c1-a968-50addf981dbc.1127255732)
Request Details:
 Operation ID: UpdateJobStatus
Request ID: 1
Version: 2.0
Attributes:
Attribute Group: OperationAttributes
  Attribute attributes-charset: SimpleIppValue-Type:Charset-Value:UTF-8

  Attribute attributes-natural-language: SimpleIppValue-Type:NaturalLanguage-Value:en-gb

  Attribute output-device-uuid: SimpleIppValue-Type:TextWithoutLanguage-Value:urn:uuid:7a291562-2481-421b-bf5e-b51b63512317

  Attribute job-id: SimpleIppValue-Type:Integer-Value:2226


Attribute Group: JobAttributes
  Attribute generated-natural-language-supported - Multiple Values:
SimpleIppValue-Type:NaturalLanguage-Value:en
SimpleIppValue-Type:NaturalLanguage-Value:fr

  Attribute ipp-versions-supported - Multiple Values:
SimpleIppValue-Type:Keyword-Value:1.0
SimpleIppValue-Type:Keyword-Value:1.1
SimpleIppValue-Type:Keyword-Value:2.0

  Attribute printer-state: SimpleIppValue-Type:Enum-Value:3

  Attribute printer-state-reasons: SimpleIppValue-Type:Keyword-Value:none

  Attribute output-device-job-state: SimpleIppValue-Type:Enum-Value:9

  Attribute output-device-job-state-reasons: SimpleIppValue-Type:Keyword-Value:job-completed-successfully

  Attribute output-device-job-state-message: SimpleIppValue-Type:TextWithoutLanguage-Value:Completed

  Attribute job-impressions-completed: SimpleIppValue-Type:Integer-Value:1

  Attribute job-name: *** PII masked ***
  Attribute job-originating-user-name: *** PII masked ***
  Attribute microsoft-job-fetched-time-seconds: SimpleIppValue-Type:Integer-Value:63

  Attribute microsoft-job-processed-time-seconds: SimpleIppValue-Type:Integer-Value:0

  Attribute microsoft-job-printed-time-seconds: SimpleIppValue-Type:Integer-Value:21

  Attribute microsoft-output-device-job-state-message: SimpleIppValue-Type:TextWithoutLanguage-Value:
ErrorCode: 0
Impersonation: Disabled
AzureAdJoined : YES
EnterpriseJoined : NO
DomainJoined : NO
Successfully impersonated: N/A
Post impersonation user type: System
Print job origin: ReceivedNotification
Document format: application/oxps
File signature: PK

And then, the second entry

Retry 0 Exception: StatusCode: 503, ReasonPhrase: 'Service Unavailable', Version: 1.1, Content: System.Net.Http.StreamContent, Headers:
{
  X-Cache: CONFIG_NOCACHE
  X-MSEdge-Ref: Ref A: 6EF26F23A4BD41FF929ECD4BE539A281 Ref B: HEL01EDGE1619 Ref C: 2021-10-13T08:28:32Z
  Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2021 08:28:34 GMT
  Content-Length: 0
}

After a job fails, we can usually print the next one just fine. 

To me, it seems like the connector sometimes cant connect to print.print.microsoft.com

Any suggestions on how I should troubleshoot it from here?

EDIT: Looking at the Azure portal, I can see that the health status is "unknown"

Perhaps an issue in the connection between the PrintConnector and Azure services?

[#2]

we are experiencing the same issue.

Since the product is out of the public preview its horrible slow. a simple testpage takes up to 3 minutes to get spooled.

We are thinking to downgrade back to the Hybrid Cloud print Solution. that worked fast ... 

[#3]

@Erik_Schuiling One of the factors that impact job latency is the time to upload and download documents from cloud. What is the payload size for your documents?

3 minutes is large if its happening on regular basis? How busy are your printers. Currently, for a single printer on Universal Print connector jobs are processed one after another. Sometimes this can cause delay if the previous job on same printer is delayed.

Last thing to check is printer status.

@mrkitty are you still seeing latency issues? Can you reach out to Microsoft Support if you continue to see 503s?

Thanks

Saurabh

[#4]

I have reached out to Microsoft Support. At the moment UniversalPrint works fine, so for now our fingers are crossed that it will keep working.
Despite the logs are still marking several errors, there is nothing to explain the slow and failing jobs we saw.

[#5]

@Saurabh_Bansal 

we had raised a support request and Microsoft confirmed there was a performance issue.

We created now multiple print queues to speed up the process.

[#6]

I can only confirm the problems with the speed of the MUP. We have several customer installations with the MUP and with all installations it takes between 3-5 minutes for a normal print job (1-3 pages) until the print job is available. Since we always have uniFLOW behind the MUP as a FolowMe solution, the users hardly notice this problem, but the problem is definitely present and has nothing to do with the speed of the connection to the cloud. We would be very grateful for any ideas that could contribute to the solution.

[#7]

We haven´t had any issues since November 2021. Neither Microsoft or myself ever found the reason for the slow prints and failing print jobs, but for some reason, it just started working and has so ever since.

[#8]

@radwan - Seems like the problem you are seeing is specific to Uniflow Online - is that correct? We will follow-up with Uniflow team to identify and address the problem.

@mrkitty - Glad to hear that print latencies look better now. Sometimes it could be due to resources on the connector or printer specific driver being used on the connector. Our team has also spent considerable platform-wide effort over last months to make the performance better.

If you notice an issue again, please reach out to Microsoft Support.

[#9]

@Saurabh_Bansal 

Thanks for the quick reply, it was definitely faster than the reply to the support ticket . 

Yes, we are talking about uniFLOW online. And we do not have a print server or MUP connector in use, but the users print directly from the client to the MUP. And all users print to the same MUP, because the printer-user assignment happens later in uniFLOW online (uFo). And here, in my opinion, the MUP is somewhat overwhelmed when we are talking about several hundred users and more than 50 printers.