Meter collection and reporting

Software 3.4 · reviewed 2026-08-18

Poll schedule

Meters are read every four hours by default, and once more at 23:50 so that a calendar day always closes on a real reading rather than an interpolation. Four hours is not about accuracy — counters only go up — it is about noticing a device that has gone quiet before the month ends.

Default interval	4 hours, plus a closing read at 23:50 site time
Minimum interval	1 hour. Anything shorter is refused; it adds nothing and annoys older devices.
Per-device timeout	4 s, three attempts, then the device is marked unreachable for that pass
Unreachable threshold	3 consecutive failed passes raises alert MLU-104
Manual read	mluctl meter read --all, any time, does not disturb the schedule

mluctl meter schedule show
mluctl meter schedule set --every 6h --closing 23:50
mluctl meter read 10.20.4.31 --verbose

Which counters exist

What can be read depends entirely on the platform. The unit never estimates a counter it cannot read; a missing counter stays missing, and the report says so.

Counter	Availability	Notes
Total pages	Everything	The only counter guaranteed by the standard MIB.
Mono / colour split	Most colour devices	Some platforms count a page with one coloured pixel as colour; that is the device’s definition, not ours.
A4 / A3 split	Department MFPs	Rarely present on desktop devices even when they have the trays.
Duplex sheets	Mixed	Some report sheets, some report sides. The profile records which.
Copy / print / fax / scan	MFPs with a full profile	Missing on generic matches.
Large-format square metres	Plotters only	Read as an area counter, not as pages.

Never mix a device’s own total with the sum of its parts. On several platforms the total counter includes internal test and cleaning pages that the per-type counters do not. The two numbers differ by a handful of pages a month and every audit that mixes them ends in an argument.

Retention and storage

Data	Kept for	Resolution
Raw readings	90 days	Every poll
Daily closing readings	3 years	One per device per day
Month-end readings	7 years	One per device per month
Supply history	2 years	Daily
Alert log	1 year	Every event

A standard fleet of 150 devices uses roughly 900 MB after three years. Neither model runs out of room on meter data; if storage warnings appear, look at held print jobs first.

Gaps, resets and corrections

Three things go wrong with counters in the field, and all three are visible in the console as a flag on the reading rather than a silent adjustment.

Gap. The device was off or unreachable at the scheduled poll. The next successful reading closes the gap; the pages are attributed to the day they were read, and the report marks the day as interpolated.
Reset. A counter goes down. Almost always a mainboard replacement, occasionally a factory reset. The unit does not subtract: it opens a new counter run, records the reset, and reports both segments. Nothing is billed across a reset without a human confirming it.
Jump. A counter rises by an implausible amount in one interval — the default threshold is 20,000 pages in four hours. Flagged implausible, kept, and excluded from automatic exports until reviewed.

# see the flags on a device's recent history
mluctl meter history 10.20.4.31 --last 30d --flags

# accept a reset after checking the service record
mluctl meter accept-reset 10.20.4.31 --at 2026-07-14 --note "mainboard replaced, ticket 41920"

A correction is never a rewrite. accept-reset annotates history; it does not edit stored readings, and there is no command that does. If somebody asks for the numbers to be changed, the answer is a note on the report.

Exports

Three formats, all produced from the same daily closing readings. They can be mailed on a schedule or written to a share.

Format	Contents	Typical use
csv	One row per device per period: serial, model, location, counters, flags	Billing. The format the desk actually wants.
summary.csv	One row per site per period	Contract review.
json	Full structure including per-poll detail	Feeding another system. Stable across 3.x.

mluctl export meters --from 2026-08-01 --to 2026-08-31 --format csv --out /var/spool/mlu/aug.csv
mluctl export schedule add --format csv --monthly 1 --mail billing@printdoc.digital
mluctl export schedule list

Scheduled exports run at 06:00 on the chosen day, after the previous day has closed. An export that contains a flagged reading names it in the first line of the mail body, so nobody has to notice it in a spreadsheet.