Oracle Connector ERROR: LPSSocket.lps error setting communication timeout: Connection refused

Message

ERP system will error when trying to submit a print job to the Oracle Connector See Loftware Connector.. Either of the following two errors are presented:

Explanation

Jobs that receive this error message will not reach LPS. It is possible that some jobs will make it though while others do not, and may appear to be an intermittent issue.

Solution

To help determine the cause, enable Verbose Logging from the Connector Console Settings menu. This will add additional detail to the trace logging on the Oracle host (typically Unix). Locate the trace files (udump dir).

Below is a sample (full log attached) of the additional detail in the trace file.
!!! LWCONN.MSG(06/16/2011 13:43:47): LPSSocket.lps creating new socket with port: 2723, timeout: 30000, host: jaxcp01ps.fn.ae.ge.com/172.17.0.144
!!! LWCONN.ERR(06/16/2011 13:47:32): (ERR) LPSSocket.lps error setting communication timeout: null
!!! LWCONN.ERR(06/16/2011 13:47:32): LPSPrintRequest.handlePrintRequest: Exception com.loftware.lps.connector.LPSConnectorException: LPSSocket.lps error setting communication timeout: null

While a Job that succeeded from the same host is:
!!! LWCONN.MSG(06/16/2011 13:38:53): LPSSocket.lps creating new socket with port: 2723, timeout: 30000, host: jaxcp01ps.fn.ae.ge.com/3.56.118.133
!!! LWCONN.MSG(06/16/2011 13:38:53): LPSResponse.responseForStream reading from socket: dataLen = 4, offset = 0, readCount = 4, bytesRead = 4
!!! LWCONN.MSG(06/16/2011 13:38:53): LPSResponse.responseForStream read response command 33289 with size 4
!!! LWCONN.MSG(06/16/2011 13:38:53): LPSPrintJobResponse created with statusCode: 4, printerNumber: 0, jobNumber: 6420088, errorMessage: null, serverName: jaxcp01ps.fn.ae.ge.com, xmlData: null
!!! LWCONN.MSG(06/16/2011 13:38:53): Elapsed time for: Printing: 0 seconds
!!! LWCONN.MSG(06/16/2011 13:38:53): LPSConnector.print filter created a total of 1 requests
If you look at the end of the first line in each example, the IP address of the LPS is different though the host name is the same.

The above example is from directing some jobs to the backup IP address on the LPS. The error is due to the fact that Loftware and the LPS only monitor a single IP and port.

A temporary workaround is to update the LPS_SERVERS table in Oracle Loftware tablespace to reflect the IP address of the LPS in place of the hostname. Note that the IP may be replaced with the hostname during any update from the console.