Generalise printer-only monitoring to every configured device. New DeviceMonitor polls all enabled devices each tick (default 8s): printers via rich readStatus(), relays/readers/cameras via the generic healthCheck() reachability probe, flattened to one traffic-light (ready/degraded/offline) + detail, deduped (emit on change only), fail-toward-offline. - device-status bus event + GET /api/devices/status snapshot. - Pushed over the existing /api/ws (hello carries the initial set; device-status frame per change). - Web: live-store devices map, WS handler, DeviceFooter chip-per-device (role label not vendor; click a degraded/offline chip for an issues panel). Verified roleKind resolution + change-only emit on a fresh DB. Note: the footer's UI surface (api type, router mount, i18n devices) rides in the subsequent subscription commit due to shared-file overlap. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Xcm6ikLgGoCxxHrxtjkk5V
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type, tags, sources, updated
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2026-06-14 |
Printer status monitoring
Generalised 2026-06-18: the booth's all-device status footer is a separate, unified monitor across every category (relays/readers/cameras/printers) — see device-status-monitoring. This page remains the authority for the printer-specific rich status (paper/cover/cutter) + its SSE stream; both monitors run.
The booth must know a printer is in trouble before a driver presses the entry button and no ticket comes out. So the system polls each printer's live status (paper out, cover open, cutter jam, off-line) and pushes changes to the operator UI. A reliability control, like printer-roles-failover — not a threat-model one.
Where the status comes from (the safe-decode decision)
The raw print socket (TCP 9100) is write-only for us — it returns no paper/cover feedback. ESC/POS
printers expose status via real-time queries (DLE EOT n). On the rongta-printer clone we
probed, DLE EOT replies do NOT follow the canonical ESC/POS bit layout (the spec's fixed
validation bits were wrong, verified on hardware 2026-06-14). Decoding those bits ourselves risked
a false-healthy — reporting "paper OK" when it's empty — which is the dangerous direction for
an entry lane.
Instead we scrape the device's own status web page (http://<host>/prn_stat.htm). The board
decodes the bits itself into labelled Yes/No rows (Cover Is Open, Cutter Error, Paper End, Paper
Near End, Printer Off-Line). We trust the device's decode over hand-decoding an undocumented clone.
This is captured as a device capability: MonitorableDevice.readStatus(): PrinterStatus in
packages/devices. The Rongta driver implements it; the monitor is device-agnostic via
isMonitorable(). A future printer with a different status mechanism just implements the same
interface.
Status mapping (fail safe)
readStatus() maps to ready | degraded | offline:
- status page unreachable / times out → offline (same signal as a dead printer; never throws),
- page reachable but a recognised field is missing → degraded ("unexpected status page") — we do NOT claim "ready" off a page we didn't fully parse,
- any fault flag true (paper end, cover open, cutter error, off-line) → degraded + a detail string ("paper out", …),
- all five clear → ready.
The monitor (server)
PrinterMonitor (apps/server/src/printer-monitor.ts):
- reloads the monitored set from
deviceseach tick (so a newly-assigned printer is picked up without a restart), keeping only enabled, monitorable printers; - polls every
PRINTER_POLL_MS(default 5000ms), never overlapping ticks; - caches the latest status per device id;
- emits a
printer-statusevent on the device bus only when status changes (deduped).
API / live UI
GET /api/printers/status— cached snapshot of all printers (no device round-trip).GET /api/printers/status/stream— Server-Sent Events: full snapshot on connect, then one event per change. The booth SPA subscribes for real-time paper-out / offline indicators.- Any authenticated role may read (operational, not a setup action).
Verified on hardware (2026-06-14)
readStatus() against 10.0.10.6 → ready (all flags false); against an unreachable host →
offline with "status page timeout" (no throw); bus emits on change and suppresses unchanged
reads. Full repo typechecks.
Open / not yet done
- Fault-state capture: we've only observed the all-clear page. The exact label text for an active fault (e.g. does "Paper End" flip to "Yes"?) should be confirmed by physically removing paper / opening the cover, to be 100% sure the scrape catches it. The parser is built to match Yes/No and degrade on anything unexpected, so this is a confidence check, not a blocker.
- Tying a
degraded/offlineentry-dispenser into printer-roles-failover failover and the (not-yet-built) entry flow's all-printers-down policy (device-input-flow).